


Bang-Up Job

by odoridango



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Backstory, Canon Divergence, Character Study, Families of Choice, Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6349756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odoridango/pseuds/odoridango
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A canon-based exploration of how things would or wouldn't change if Eren Jaeger was passed down some of his father's medical knowledge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

One horrifically pleasant spring day, his mother in bed, pained and hard of breathing, face blotchy, red and slick with sweat, sores under her clothing, and his father calls for him and tells him to fetch the mortar and pestle from the kitchen. Eren goes, because four going on five, his mother is everything in his small Shiganshina world, the one who wakes him in the mornings and watches him fondly when he helps her tend to the herbs in the small back plot behind the house, the one who hugs him and teaches him that homecooked meals are the best. His father, brow pinched, face pale, takes the heavy stone instruments from his son’s hands, and sets them on the side table. 

He shifts Carla gently onto her side and she makes a pained sound that, trapped and rattling in her chest, echoes unsettlingly. Grisha tells him, in a rasp of a voice, that he needs Eren’s help to make Mommy better, and all Eren has to do is push firmly at this spot on Mommy’s nape, and these couple places on her back too. Eren does what he’s told, and Grisha takes the time to administer another shot to his mother’s arm. His father draws him close, old stethoscope digging against Eren’s chest, and tells him again, Eren, Mommy needs your help, all you have to do is go into the garden…

Eren does as he’s told.

It’s not long after that that Eren begins to go with Grisha to his appointments, learns more spots to push, some that block pain, some that inspire pain, some that stop people from moving, and the places to rub and unknot for relief. He takes special pleasure in rubbing the stress from his mother’s sickened frame when she’s well enough to get of bed; the neighbors whisper about them behind their backs, about how Doctor Jaeger was able to fix the plague single-handedly, wasn’t that a close shave, his wife catching it as well, and lucky for him not little Eren, too. Little Eren thinks they talk too much, and when his father takes him to the back plot and into the woods to learn about different plants and what they do, he wonders if his father will also teach him how to poison annoying neighbors.

It’s how he meets Armin. They visit his grandfather, who has a bad spot of arthritis; Eren can almost hear his joints creak as they move. As the adults talk, he looks out the window and spots the bruised boy huddled in the backyard behind a thick tree trunk. He puts together a small poultice on his own for the first time, from the sap of the selfsame tree and the flowers growing on the windowsill, and Armin smiles at him when Eren holds his hand and asks him if he feels better. Then Eren asks about his book, and it’s smooth sailing from there, a world beyond the walls blossoming and opening before his eyes.

The body too, begins to open up. As he grows older his father takes him to the butcher’s shop, a rare treat, takes him to the back room and Eren watches them slaughter a pig, sticky, oozing blood slopping over the stone floor, and his father takes the heart in one gloved hand and tells him what’s inside: the heart’s a muscle Eren, and it has four parts. He sees the blood vessels, sees the layers of fat and muscle, and the smell of copper burns in his lungs. If a pig heart and a human heart are so similar, what separate the two, a human and a pig? And when he begins to sit in on small surgeries, mouth turning antiseptic sour, small hands working efficiently to press the right spots and stop the pain, he finds that there’s no real difference at all. A pig is a human is a pig. They all breathe and eat and sleep and die, and there’s something he thinks is simultaneously mundane and disgusting in it, that trapped behind walls, they all feed and shit and breed the same as pigs do in their cages. But there is his mother who reminds him that relationships give meaning, and he tries to remember her smile when he sews someone together for the first time, tears threatening to drop from his eyelids as the patient whimpers on the table, like a dog run over on the street, and when he sees her at home he rushes to the latrine and heaves.

Shiganshina is not a kind town. They’re on the very edge of the border, right on the outer fringe of the wall, and the folks inside the inner walls make fun of them, spite them, the last minute refugees from all corners of the world who tried to survive and live same as all the rest of them. The houses are small and close together, and the marketplace is always a thriving mix of languages and dialects flowing alongside the common tongue. But the merchandise is always the same, frugal and mediocre in quality, and the prices are always cheap, because Shiganshina is nothing else if not cheap. No one has any money, and if they did, they would be robbed blind, for Shiganshina does not distinguish between street business and legitimate business, and the two are often found together.

When they treat patients, medicine comes from home brews and handmade poultices, simple things from the earth, save for vaccines and pills that are made cheap and generic. Pressure points and massages dull pain because anesthetic is expensive and rare to come by, while bandages are “sterilized” rags washed and soaked in soapy hot water. And when the plague came around to strike down a third of the population, the truth is that it came through Wall Sina, and that people died because the inner wall folk refused to help the outer wall scum who probably contracted the disease living with the rats, so close to the wilder forests. No one could afford the resources needed because they weren’t for sale, not for them. Grisha Jaeger gains notoriety not because he got access to the vaccine, but because he found a way to make the cure that no one would give them. He becomes well known among Sina eccentrics for his comprehensive knowledge, the effectiveness of his complementary practices, and his aptitude for research relative to inner wall doctors, and they like to ask him for made-to-order poultices, herbal teas, acupressure and massage treatment sessions.

Eren spends his childhood this way, reading medical books, getting his hands dirty with scalpel, needle and tweezers, learning to set bones and dislocate shoulders. He watches the Scouting Legion leave, watches the heavy gate close behind them, gets beaten up by Armin’s bullies, kills two men, and gains a sister. He makes more and more hunting trips into the forest because new tariffs are creating a lack of meat at the butcher’s, and if people were more honest with themselves, meat from the forests tastes better than meat from the shop. He reads late into the night with Armin and Mikasa at his side, dreams of oceans and deserts, massages away Mikasa’s night terrors and soothes Armin’s bruises, and finds out more and more about all the ways humans break, rupture and spill in increasingly disturbing ways, and remembers the spray of arterial blood just as well as he remembers the hideous face that breaks through the wall on that day.

When they get to the other side of the wall, Eren sends his father a letter. His father never replies, never shows up, and all Eren can remember of their last encounter before newbie training is the lurch of his stomach, the expanse of missing memory in his head, and the burnished polish of the key that hangs around his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....Did this fic look reaaaally familiar? That's probably because you saw the earliest version of this fic when I posted it over two years ago on [the snk kink meme](http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/2124.html?thread=1883212#cmt1883212). 
> 
> This was actually the first fic I ever wrote for SnK, and the first fic I had written in maybe two to three years, and definitely the first work where I had ever done so much unexpected worldbuilding. In all honesty BUJ is really self indulgent and not based on much research, but since it was such a landmark for me, and was what really got me started writing again, it holds a special place in my heart! Aside from some short edits this likely won't deviate far from its original form, but if you are a first time reader, this does mean that the fic is done, it's just being uploaded section by section so I can go through and edit it. For a long time I didn't think I would be able to finish it, and maybe some longer-time readers might find the end disappointing, but this was good enough for me.
> 
> Definitely welcoming any commentary and thoughts! Hope you enjoyed, and look forward to the next part!


	2. Part 2

The first time he treats someone in the 104th Trainee Corps, it’s something of a grand production. Sasha eats too much too fast, and no one spares her an extra glance when she abruptly stops eating to choke on a piece of bread, except she’s grabbing at her throat and turning a little blue, and Christa pounds her back while shouting for help because it looks like she isn’t breathing.

Without giving it much thought, Eren walks over, slings his arms around her middle and _heaves_. It’s easy to forget that Eren’s a decent fighter and has just as much bulk in muscle as any other trainee buckling down on 3D maneuver gear and suffering supervisor ass-whupping since he’s just built skinny, but Sasha claims later that it was like someone hit her in the stomach with a sledgehammer. Sasha’s face is still turning a bit blue, so he pulls in roughly four more times.

“Sasha, c’mon, breathe,” he mutters absently, pounding her back five times, before looping around his arms again and pushing his fist into her diaphragm none too gently.

Her body jerks, and she coughs out a soggy piece of bread, curls over Eren’s arms and vomits all over the floor. The small audience they’ve accumulated makes some distant sounds of disgust, though Connie still takes the cake with his loud screech. She breathes heavily, sucking in much needed air as he does a light scan of her condition with his fingers. She hisses when his fingers press against her ribs, so he manhandles her back onto the canteen bench, where Christa promptly begins to fret over her, Ymir making wry comments about eating too fast and how big her mouth is.

“…I think I broke your rib,” Eren says, awkwardly patting Sasha on the back, “You might want to go the infirmary. To check on it. And you might have some bruises.” He doesn’t think Sasha would appreciate him lifting up her shirt to check for auxiliary injuries.

 Jean gives him the hairy eyeball as he wanders back to Mikasa and Armin to finish his sorry excuse for dinner. Armin smiles at him, remembering when Eren showed him how to help a choking grandfather, and Mikasa tugs him down in the seat beside her, handing him back his spoon. He’s too tired to start a fight today, so he just gives Jean the finger and goes back to eating, making sure to take small bites. This isn’t an appointment or a visit from one of his father’s patients in need of a quick check-up, and since the beginning of his trainee days, he’s grown a distaste for being the center of attention. When Reiner leans over to ask what he did, Annie’s disinterested stare looking from two tables over, he’s surprised to see that no one seems to know what the Heimlich maneuver is.

A month later Armin helps Eren stumble across the threshold of the men’s barracks to their cramped bunks, where they all sleep two to a bed. Eren and Armin share a bottom bunk, a good thing since the gaping wound on left side of Eren’s abdomen is still steadily leaking blood.

Armin slides Eren onto their bed, and starts helping his friend remove the buckles and straps of the maneuver gear.

“What happened? How is he?” Reiner asks from several bunks away, already moving, “Shouldn’t he be going to the infirmary instead?”

“Someone was careless during remedial practice and hit him with the 3DMG,” Armin says, a fine tremor in his voice, “Dug into his side and knocked him into the ground. Not to mention the Scouting Legion just came back and you know higher officers get priority. They won’t have the time, much less the resources to look at Eren.” He darts a quick glance at Eren’s face. “Eren, are you doing alright?”

Eren is pale, and a grimace seems to have settled permanently on his face for the moment. He’s abnormally quiet, his mouth pinched into an unmoving line. “Get this shirt off me,” he says shortly in response, the white uniform pants beginning to turn red at the top. Reiner comes over to help, and the short jerking movements have Eren baring his teeth in pain. Connie and Jean clatter over the doorstep.

“Armin, we got hot soapy water and sponges,” Jean says, prompt, settling the tub down. “You’re lucky we ran into you on your way over—“

“Candle,” Eren grits out between clenched teeth, sending Jean an irritated look, “Do we have a candle?”

Jean glares right back. “Of course we did, we’re not incompetent like some people.”

“Well if you aren’t then you better light it already,” Eren growls. The wound glints in the low light, red with blood, spotted with dirt and bits of yellow shirt.  Armin dips the sponge in the tub, raises it gingerly, but Eren swipes it out of his hands with a curt order. “Armin, go get my pouch. I’m going to have to take care of this myself.”

Armin nods, anxious. He knows the infirmary won’t open in time; it’s best to take care of the wound while it’s still manageable.

“What are you talking about, do you even know what you’re doing?!” Jean shouts, lurching forward, hesitant to get closer. While he’s not sure that Eren is capable of taking care of himself, it isn’t like Jean has any medical knowledge to offer.

Eren makes to bend down to the tub, but Connie is there to lift it to him. With a tight nod of thanks, Eren wets his own hands before digging into his side with a hiss, ignores the blood that pools down his side as he deliberately opens his own wound and scrubs at it gently with the sponge, squeezing to flush out the dirt and grime, a grey streak among the red. He pauses to dig out mercifully large bits of fabric, rewets the sponge. A flare of light goes up; Reiner has lit the candle, and even Marco and Bertholdt are looking over in curiosity.

Armin presses a small glass vial in his hand, and Eren uncorks it, jackknifes with a shout when he pours some of it over the wound, the acrid smell of alcohol filling the air.

“Shit, where did you even get alcohol?” Jean breathes as he steadies Eren back onto the bed with his hand. Armin’s there to take the vial away and he’s removing a wicked looking needle and a set of metal tools from a good sized pouch.  

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Eren groans in reply. Blood still trickles from the wound sluggishly, and Armin eyes the trails as he passes the length of the tools and needle through the fire. He waits for them to cool before dousing them in alcohol, and offers Eren the disinfected tools and a scrap of leather.

“Fuck,” Connie mutters when he sees the needle, “Eren, you’re unbelievable. There’s no way. Can you even sew?”

“Ugh, just shut your face, don’t remind me,” Eren says, clenching his teeth around the leather scrap and sitting up with his back ramrod straight. Jean wants to say something too, something about how much of a dumbass Eren and how this time he’s literally going to get himself killed, but Armin, who is basically Eren’s conscience, hasn’t protested this entire time. His eyes are pinched in worry, but he never cautions his friend, never stops him.

They watch silently as Eren looks down and sews himself together with neat, transparent stitches, his hands eerily steady and quick as he passes the miniscule thread in and out of his body. Fat tears hang at the edge of his eyelashes, he blinks once and one of them tumbles down his cheek. His blood is not nearly as reluctant and drip-drips its way down his abdomen. His body jerks and flinches, and sometimes he pauses to close his eyes and take deep breaths through his nose. The red mouth of the wound begins to close, bit by bit, and when Armin helps him into bed by the end of it, his skin is slick with sweat and his hands are limp.

“Reiner,” Armin calls, “Let Mikasa know, will you? Otherwise she’ll be angry in the morning.” He gathers Eren’s medical things, wraps them in Eren’s dirtied shirt, and Connie seems to be having the time of his life stripping off Eren’s pants. Eren tries to bat him off with a weak arm, grunting in discomfort, whines when Jean gently wrestles a clean shirt onto him, rattling insults off into his ear as a distraction.

When the infirmary is at full stock again three days later, Eren goes in for a check-up, pouch in hand. He’s passed a bill of clean health, and gains a touch-and-go apprenticeship for his handiwork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna be busy this week, so I figured I'd upload the next part earlier rather than later. This chapter illustrates well what I meant when I said this was a very self-indulgent (and unrealistic) fic. PLEASE DON'T DO THIS AT HOME EVER.
> 
> the sewing yourself up thing is a very strong visual I got years ago when I first read a FMA fic, but I can't remember the title or author anymore. but credit where credit is due.


	3. Interlude: Jean

As for Jean, he keeps a weather eye out, and tells his theories to Marco. It’s strange, unnatural that a boy should be able to sew himself up at the drop of a hat, and some days the vision of Eren’s quiet, steady hands lingers as he tries to sleep, and he remembers the blood that blotted the sponge and stained the water pink, the slick wetness of the wound and the thin pinpricks of crimson that bloomed with each pass of the needle.

This is what Jean knows: Eren and Armin’s bunk begins to smell like flowers and damp earth, and a large pile of books begins to accumulate after several trips into town. The subjects range from fictional stories to philosophy, but there are quite a few tomes on anatomy and biology. Eren sometimes disappears on weekends, but Armin and Mikasa seem to think nothing of it when their trio shrinks to two, and linger in the shade of trees, fingers touching and reading children’s tales together. Eren’s pouch never shows itself again.

But Eren and Armin like to read together late into the night, so Jean creeps out of bed, careful not to disturb Marco, and ducks under the series of thick fabric scraps that the two have made to block out the lantern light from their fellow soldiers.

“Spill,” Jean demands.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Eren asks flatly, one thick eyebrow arching condescendingly. He and Armin are snuggled close together on their bellies, shoulder-to-shoulder with a book splayed open before them. Armin thumps him solidly on the arm, but then he turns to Jean and gives him the same exact look. Not for the first time, Jean curses childhood friends and their magical twin telepathy.

“There’s something going on with you, Jaeger. And you,” he jabs a finger into Armin’s face, “and Mikasa are in on it. That time when Sasha choked and when you stitched yourself up, and you and your fancy-pants anatomy books.” Jean takes a suspicious sniff and nods his head sagely. “And your bunk smells girly. So spill.”

Eren still looks like he’s seconds away from planting his fist somewhere unfortunate, but Armin seems to get it. “He means your medical skills,” Armin says, nudging his arm.

Eren sighs exasperatedly. “You heard Armin, apparently I have medical skills. Will you leave now?”

Jean buries his hands in his hair and scrubs in frustration. “But when did you have time to get medical skills?”

Eren gives him a pointed glare, finally shifting his attention away from the book. “You know, we did have actual lives before Shiganshina, right? My dad was a doctor, I helped him at work. End of story.”

Jean sits back on his haunches, only partially pacified. “Then where do you go on the weekends?”

“Look, Jean, this isn’t even your business. Can you just—“

“But then why don’t you become a doctor?” Jean whispers vehemently. “I don’t get you. You’ve already got a valuable skill. Why are you so stupid?! Why throw your life away? If you can help people and heal people inside the walls, why don’t you just do that?”

“Because I can’t!” Eren hisses, brow furrowing into his customary scowl. Armin gives them both a warning look, tapping his index finger against his lips. Eren deflates a bit at the gesture.

“It’s not that easy. There are so few of us left, it’s too easy to weed us out.”

“Us?”

“Refugees,” Armin murmurs in melancholy, “From the Fall of Shiganshina. The operation to retake Wall Maria a year later was mostly only made up of Shiganshina refugees, as if we didn’t lose everyone in the initial assault. They don’t like us very much here, inside the walls.” He smooths out the page corner he’s crumpled in his hand.

“They think we aren’t real people, or some bullshit like that,” Eren mutters, bumping shoulders with Armin, hands fisting in the sheets.  He’s getting the same glint in his eyes as he does when he talks about killing titans. “All of us live in the slums. None of us have proper identification now, since all of our documents were in the local district hall. It got destroyed when the Colossal Titan attacked, and since Shiganshina’s far out, so no one on the inside wanted to take care of it. Officially, we don’t exist, so the higher-ups can do whatever they want.”

“Jean, you live in Trost, don’t you?” Armin asks, patting Eren’s hand. “You must have heard something about us.”

Jean has. He’s heard the horror stories of the slums, where refugees live, all of them mad from the attack and from being too close to the forests. There’s even talk of them being infected by dangerous forest sprites, too wild and too unrefined. Refugees who were worthless before, outside the wall because they weren’t smart enough to get in at the first hint of titans, a bunch of confused people who eked out a living too close to vermin and filth, with so many tribes no one could keep them straight, too annoying to deal with, sucking up the resources, causing shortages. It’s always been a bit difficult to believe, but with Eren and Armin in front of him, he feels distantly sick, imagining the two of them in those conditions. Eren might be a little shit, but it’s not like Jean wants him to suffer unnecessarily, and Armin’s good people, aside from his sense in friends.

“No doctor would take me on, whether I was qualified or not,” Eren sighs, propping a hand under his chin. “I wouldn’t have the papers to show them, and I wouldn’t be able to lie either, since I wouldn’t have anyone to vouch for me. If I got tracked back to the slums, I’d be in big trouble. And if it got out that I was from Shiganshina, the business would probably lose clients so fast there’d be no point. There aren’t enough resources in the slums to do anything there, and affording anything at Rose market prices is really difficult. Besides, this is like medical work, too. You still need doctors on the field, on the front line. And I’m still helping people, just in a different way.”

Jean just sighs, hand over his eyes. He’s not sure whether or not he should admire Eren for his tenacity or try to browbeat more sense into this singularly titan-headed kid. He lifts his head and stares at them a little more, thinks about how he would feel if the titans obliterated his hometown, ate his family. He imagines living in a ghetto, no official identity, and having skills he could never use because people think he’s some sort of sprite of the forests. He can’t imagine it.

Armin blinks back, corners of his mouth turned into this wry, bitter sort of look. “You haven’t thought about it before, have you?”

“…no, I haven’t,” Jean replies quietly. “But…thanks.”

“Thank us by going back to your bunk,” Eren drawls, flicking his hand. But he doesn’t look so angry, and the tension in his brows has eased. The lantern light makes his eyes gentler.

As expected, Eren always knows the best thing to say to ruin the mood.


	4. Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some more graphic descriptions of wounds in this chapter- nothing super explicit or gory, but if you are queasy about blood, please take note! Also some mentions of surgery and amputations, but again, nothing detailed.

Eren judges his shifts at the infirmary by the state of the floors that he has to scrub down at the end of the day. With its necessity for cleanliness, the infirmary is the only building in the military complexes with a tile floor, and the white-cream color of the ceramic makes it easy to color-code. If the water washes mostly clear, with some stray hairs and dirt here and there, it’s been a good day. It’s when the floor foams up in light pink bubbles that float and pop in the air, that the day has been bad.

His work here is vastly different from the house visits his father conducted. The patients they receive are not children with small cuts, or mild-mannered middle-aged wives nursing migraines or spring hay fever. The infirmary takes in trainees with broken bones, internal hemorrhaging, puncture wounds, or slash wounds. There are trainees whose wounds have festered and grown poisonous, and contorted trainees who were not able to react in time when their instructors slashed their cables. There are times, where in just one look, Eren is able to tell who will live, and who will die. It doesn’t really hit him until one of the trainees from the 104th squad gets dragged in through the door one day, a bloody heap.

Heike Durler's head is a shattered mess, hair matted with red. His legs are bent at strange angles, and when he’s moved an odd mewl curls in his throat, like he doesn’t have the energy to cry in pain anymore. Eren is silent as he brings him to a bed. Heike recognizes him, tries to grab his hand, and tears leak from the corners of his eyes. One of his sclera, Eren notes distantly, capturing his hand, is stained red. The doctor brings over an IV line, and Eren hushes his compatriot, a meaningless tumble of words meant to ease and comfort, even if both he and the doctor know the truth.

The doctors here aren’t meant to treat common sicknesses, like Eren’s father was. The doctors here are glorified butchers, because the central practice of this clinic is surgery. Their practice is stuffing the viscera back in the body cavity, suctioning blood and pilfering the organs of the recently dead for the still living to use. Their business is one that amputates limbs, for better or for worse, one that bandages ruptured eyes and soothes away pain with the mercy of injection.

It’s in this practice that Eren encounters all the medicines and tools that they were never able to have in Shiganshina. His first assignment as an apprentice of the infirmary was to read several books cover to cover to absorb the theory, and in his downtime, he was brought in to practice on injured animals. He administers anesthetic instead of acupressure, sterilizes tools with alcohol instead of hot water and flame, and all the medicines here are made of powders and small, ground pills instead of poultices and boiled herbs. There is morphine and antibacterial creams, alcohol wipes, a multitude of scalpels, forceps, tweezers, and sharp, shiny things that he has never seen before. 

And, in a manner characteristic of the military, Eren learns quickly, quietly, in a trial by fire. His first major operation is an amputation, and the doctors hand him the bone saw to use, guiding him when he is uncertain. The patient is unconscious, quelled by the anesthetic, and Eren is only able to stop his hand from shaking because he wants the cut to be clean, detachable, easy to see and process. Next comes a blood transfusion, and some more familiar things, stitches, splints, burns from the mess shift. But the worst is always the return of the Scouting Legion, when all hands are on deck. They work as quickly as possible, and lives slip through their fingers as they go. Eren spends his time going between stations, sewing up wounds, taking care of minor injuries, and trying not to slip on the blood-slick floor. His hands go dry from repetitive washing, and his back hurts from hunching over wounds.

Nothing has changed. Even with the advances of Wall Sina’s medicines and technology, people still die, in the worst and most painful ways possible, bits of them left behind in some unknown battlefield. But Eren has known this to be the truth: the world is cruel and beautiful, and all lives, including his, will end. Logically, he knows that his life may end more painfully than most others, being part of the military, and he has seen what damage this lifestyle can do. And yet, his determination to enter the Scouting Legion soars ever higher.

There’s no glory in dying like that, cut open and torn apart on a metal gurney. There’s nothing heroic in dying in a titan’s mouth, chewed to bits and swallowed, just to be brought out again. Nowadays, nothing is more familiar to him than the fragility of the human body. But he finds himself angry, just like he is angry at the titans, at himself. How can he be strong if humans are so inherently weak? How can he let his days continue to pass by like this, when he knows that at any time, there may not be another day to pass by? Walls, like Maria, Sina and Rose, surround him, towering, too tall to cross, shaking apart brick by brick.

At the end of the day he will return to the barracks again, tuck himself in next to Armin, and stay awake with the smell of iron still in his nostrils, and tell the rest of his squad mates that Heike’s things will have to be cleaned out.

Knowing that, Eren holds his fellow trainee’s hand, tells him it will be alright as he slides the needle of the IV under the translucent skin of an arm. The morphine drip begins, but in some ways it is pointless—this boy will not be waking up again.

It isn’t easy to staff the infirmary and train at the same time. Eren’s squad is one of many, each one cut into further subsections which are mixed together at random for training sessions. The supervisors say that it is so none of the squads will be unfamiliar with each other when they graduate and join their squads, generating less tension. No one is certain if it actually works, or if it’s true. Eren’s weekly health classes are replaced with his infirmary sessions, and the majority of his free time is also spent in the infirmary’s sterile walls. He’s free game when the Scouting Legion returns and he’s been pulled out of class multiple times to help. Rumors circulate; Eren Jaeger has a health condition, Eren Jaeger has bribed a higher-up into letting him skip classes to go into town, Eren Jaeger is sleeping with an official to make it into the Military Police. Eren Jaeger is a liar, saying all those things about killing titans and fighting for humanity when he runs away from training at every chance he gets—it’s just like an outer-wall kid to do that.

Eren hears the rumors, he hears them all. He’s so angry, hearing the other trainees whisper about him as he storms to his next session, angry at himself for telling Heike he would live, angry that he only gets to choose how he dies. It has nothing to do with living in the outer wall, and everything to do with wanting to survive. But the honest truth is that no one really knows that Eren works in the infirmary. Mikasa and Armin do, of course, and the other boys in 104 know that he has some sort of medical knowledge thanks to the 3DMG incident six months ago. Otherwise, it’s highly irregular for a trainee to do anything but train, and as an apprentice, Eren doesn’t take care of any of the walk-in patients. The doctor manages the front and he manages the back. If there are patients recovering, he makes rounds, checking on their condition or asking them if they need anything. If there’s nothing urgent to take care of, he changes the bed sheets, maintains the equipment, restocks the cabinets with new supplies. Even if he happens to be present when a trainee gets brought in, the others accompanying the patient often leave right away, eager to avoid remedial training with Shadis for getting back late.

He doesn’t want it getting out that he has these kinds of skills. Early on, he decided that what happened in the infirmary stayed in the infirmary. The only things that trail him out of the infirmary doors are nightmares, and the only people he treats are his bunkmates in 104. He doesn’t want strangers coming to him for stitches or splints, because he can’t take the responsibility. The smell of blood dogs his footsteps when he returns to the bunks late at night, and when he’s in town he finds his eyes searching for the plants used to make poultices that knit together bone and tissue, flowers that encourage blood coagulation when steeped and drunk as tisane, herbs and spices that when blended, encourage relaxation or abrupt wakefulness. He picks what he finds around the grounds, dries them, and their grassy perfume clings to his hands and his and Armin’s bunk, where they dry. He dreams of Armin and Mikasa’s mangled bodies, jolts both himself and Armin awake. Sometimes, he spots old patients on the military grounds, wonders if their scars have healed or if they remain, and hopes they don’t remember him. His admiration for the Scouting Legion is still there, distant and yearning, but he no longer turns his head to look for them when he hears the shouts.

In between, he trains. He asks for help to catch up with his lessons—fights with Annie and Mikasa, studies and reads with Armin, practices using the 3DMG with Bertholdt and Reiner, runs drills with Connie and Sasha. Jean sometimes comes to him for a brief bout, and in those instances Ymir likes to drop by and watch, making snide comments all the while.

That’s how they make it to the top, drilling and practicing together, over and over, swapping tips and techniques.

The doctors joke about poaching him from the legion. He doesn’t know how he feels about it yet.


	5. Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a longer chapter - I remember when I wrote it I was interested in a closer look at how Eren would approach and think of his status as a titan shifter if he ever got the time to really sit down and digest it. A little more factual worldbuilding in this chapter too, maybe.

In the middle of all this, the Colossal Titan appears again, and Eren dies, only to wake as a newly minted monster, saved by Armin to enter Military Police custody.

His guards talk too much, making fun of him and telling him about all the things being said about him. An outer-wall child, some whisper, possessed by a sprite, like in the stories, an outer-wall child, rabid and wild like all the others who came from beyond Sina. The Military Police conduct another surprise raid on the slums, and the guardsmen laugh at how they kicked apart the tents and how the people scattered in fear. They don’t talk about how they always stopped right before they reached the forests, dank and dark, steeped in the myth and superstition of inner-wall children.  

His belongings have been confiscated, and Eren wonders what they think about all the medical books and equipment, all the flowers and herbs he took time to dry and press just in case. Some of the guards think he is a witch, and dare not speak to him, but for all Eren knows, he just might be one.

Shut underground so long, hands numb and heavy from the chains, Eren gets time to think. He thinks about the team members he killed, ponders his theoretical death, tries to process what he has become. Disgust, horror, and shrewdness tug him in different directions—he is now what killed his mother, but he would be useful, wouldn’t he, a monster to fight monsters? But imagining himself growing to fifteen meters, bloated, grotesque, lifting and chewing people and spitting them back out so that they show up in the infirmary bloodied and ready to die, it’s incomprehensible to him.

What does it mean, if he is what he wants to annihilate? His hate towards titans has only intensified since his work at the infirmary, and just thinking back on Trost makes him shake in fury, the screaming of panicked civilians mixing in with the screams of dying patients and the scream of his mother. The desperation of the living thrums through him even now, and sometimes his leg and arm burn where they were bitten off and exposed to a titan’s gastric acid. The line between human and titan is awfully thin, and difficult to distinguish. He remembers nothing after his almost-death, nothing after launching off the top of the wall, remembers the raw muscle fibers and large bones that had grown flash-bang around his arms, rib cage large enough to ward off a cannon ball. In that instant too, was he monster or human?

The rage that fuels him, all-encompassing and relieving in its purity, was the same rage and terror he felt when Shiganshina fell, when the Colossal Titan reappeared, when he was eaten. And now, still, he is angry. In the wake of his anger, he fears its magnitude, the almost incomprehensible sensation of fury, desperation, and despair that drove him to kill two men as a child and consumed him in a titan’s stomach, “a manifestation of the rage of all humanity”, as he heard one of his guardsmen scoff. Eren never bothered to examine his anger closely before, either too aware, or too scared of what it might mean. But in this instance, where rage can no longer shield him, he finds that without this rage, he is simply a boy, vulnerable and weak, as easily crushed as any other.

Even so, the anger he feels runs deep, and seems unceasing. That he is weak, that he is trapped and kept like a wild animal, that he is scared, that he is vulnerable, all of these things only feed the ball of fury he burns and keeps close to his heart. He has no papers, save the application he turned in to the military with Mikasa and Armin—can the Military Police do anything they want to him? He hears that the Scouting Legion is advocating for his custody, but will things be any better there? More often he is called monster than human these days. Left to his own devices, he curls around the flame of his anger, nurtures it slowly and carefully even as he waits for it to burn him, one of the only constants he can afford.  

Hands chained behind his back and forced to kneel on the stone floor, fear, indignation, and his ever-present anger swirl through Eren in turns. The only familiar faces are Commander Erwin, Captain Levi, Mikasa, and Armin, an eclectic group. Tied to a post, met with stares from all sides, he has never more keenly felt the sensation of being akin to livestock, an animal meant to entertain.

The trial begins.

On the surface, the debate seems simple: the Military Police want to cut him open on a surgical table, then they want him on the chopping block. The Scouting Legion wants to use him as a tool to regain Wall Maria, moving from the Karanes Gate to reach Shiganshina. Business interests, concerned citizens, and religious fanatics want him dead as fast as possible, mindless sheep who have never seen or faced a titan personally, never offered up their lives for the plucking. They allow children decades younger to foster the burden, children who die alone and forgotten.

The man who talks of sealing the gates is driven by blind fear—he has never seen the landfills, never seen the slums, probably has never greeted starvation like an old friend. Captain Levi is right when he remarks upon the lack of land—even the landfills are hard pressed to come up with the production volume needed to feed the inhabitants of Walls Rose and Sina. The work is backbreaking, done entirely through human labor, with long hours and barely any break time for food or water. The pay, too, is low; working on the farms throughout the winter into spring and fall didn’t even earn Eren, Mikasa and Armin enough to eat, and most times, none of the food they harvested went into their own bellies. Curled about their stomachs, huddled together for warmth on the scant lots in the slums, or in brick alleyways when they were unlucky enough to not get a spot, they would nurse their pangs of hunger, checking over each other’s hands and faces for the day’s share of scrapes and bruises. After some time, they began living on the fringes of the forest, where the natural resources were at least plentiful, at least to those who could utilize them.

The MPs would kill him to avoid disruption to their lavish, cushy lives, selfish to the end. They can’t have the people rising up, nor do they have the time or resources to deal with civil war. Outer wall rebellions are one thing—the operation several years ago eliminated 20% of Sina’s population, but also reduced the outer wall refugees’ population down to 13% of its original number. Protests or demonstrations like the ones Eren saw in his time at the landfill are easily put down by Military Police, and can land an “Outie” in jail. There are rumors too, that unfortunate Outies poached in the protests are sold by the MPs to slavers and traders in return for material goods of Sina-level manufacture. But if the Maria refugees were joined by Rose residents, the government might truly have a problem on their hands.

The judge has moved on to Eren’s strategic and practical importance and the events at Trost, and Eren hangs on his every word. The worst of it, he thinks, is the forgetting. Forgetting means that he does not have control.

“Trainee Jaeger, do you believe you can put that titan power to good use?” asks the Generalissimo.

“Yes, I do, sir!”

“However, the report from the recent mission to seal the wall says this: ‘Following his transformation into a titan, he swung his fist three times, aiming for Mikasa Ackerman…’”

He tried to kill Mikasa?

Mikasa—his only remaining family, his sister who is so strong and steadfast, she almost shames him with how deep her loyalty runs? Even with her nagging and her smothering attention, they had sat before the fire drinking hot rose hip tea together on cold winter days, squabbled and threatened each other with onion-chopping duty when helping Mother at dinnertime. They had combed through brambles and bushes to search for succulent berries to take home to Mother, and when Mother was gone, Mikasa’s arms, corded with muscle and strength of will, became a second home, the sight of black hair against a well-worn, well-loved red scarf a familiar friend. For all that they were only siblings for several months before Shiganshina was destroyed, Mikasa became another fixture of his small world, a shadow that trailed him and watched over him.

He has always made sure to patch up every injury she has ever gotten because of him or Armin, regardless of his feelings at the time. And no matter how many times Mikasa gets in his way, her tenacity, the cold well of her cynicism, her strength are all admirable. He never admits, never confesses, but were it not for Mikasa, and not to mention, Armin, he would be dead fifty times over. He would never have survived on his own. So Eren owes them both a debt, because since they've become each other’s friends and family, they have never stopped saving him.

Even now, standing at tribunal, they are trying their best. Mikasa tries to help, voice strained, Eren saved me two times before, please keep that in mind, but the Military Police stopper the argument.

“That may be so,” says Niles Dawk, and Eren is learning to despise the pointiness of his nose, his thin mouth, the pathetic pretentiousness of the moustache on his upper lip. “But Trainee Ackerman’s report contains much bias and wishful thinking and has little objective value. And we know the reason why. While we were investigating, we found a report from six years ago.” He addresses the public tribunal, “It may be difficult to believe, but at nine years old, these two killed three grown men, robbers.” Whispers, mutters, ripple across the crowd. The Scouting Legion remains stoic, though  Eren’s blood boils, thinking of Mikasa at nine, tied up, tears in her eyes, scared and about to be sold like cattle. Mikasa is not nearly as small now, not nearly as weak.

“While it was a legitimate act of self-defense, the fact is that this kill casts doubt upon Trainee Jaeger’s human nature,” Dawk continues. “Furthermore, Trainee Jaeger, Trainee Ackerman, and Trainee Arlelt do not have any kind of official documentation aside from the waivers they signed upon entrance to the military, and examination of Trainee Jaeger’s personal effects has discovered several suspicious objects.”

A familiar pouch is handed to the Generalissimo, along with a burlap sack. Upended on the podium, the medical instruments fall out of the pouch, accompanied by the soft rustling of bundles of herbs and flowers falling onto each other. Jars of creams and salves, vials of alcohol and sheaths of bandages roll about like misplaced marbles; the Generalissimo just manages to catch Eren’s makeshift mortar and pestle: a cleaned out cannonshell and a hefty rock.

“As you can see here,” Dawk announces with something like disdain, “Trainee Jaeger has in his possession medical tools and supplies, alongside several unidentified substances and plants. Further investigation has revealed that Trainee Jaeger was an apprentice to the infirmary, and participated in major operations and surgeries, as well as the caretaking of patients.”

The room erupts in sound. The civilians at the tribunal seem almost hysterical, and several of the Military Police and several of the Scouting Legion are beginning to eye him in obvious discomfort. But the Commander and Captain are silent, and continue to observe.

“Changeling!” one of the businessmen hisses in horror, shying away.

“A witch, like in the legends—“

“—fucking Outies, what if he brings another plague to us—“

“—infirmary?! That’s a joke, he’s been experimenting on humans—“

“—leaving curses or spells on the bodies, he has—“

“—those refugees are no good, should have turned them away and left them to the titans—“

“—used black magic to steal the body of a child and blend into our midst, he’s a monster!”

“—killed people, what’s to say he won’t kill us either?! He’s a spy!”

“Kill him!”

“Kill him!”

“Kill him!”

“Her, too!” the man from before shouts, sweating heavily, face red and eyes almost popping out of his head, one shaking finger pointing at Mikasa. Her eyes are dark and startled in her pale face. “All of them, they’re all in on it! You’re defending him; you must be titans, too!"

Armin and Mikasa cannot waver as he has these past several days. They cannot fall.

“No!” Eren screams, voice rusty from disuse, struggling to rise above the din. “Call me a monster all you like, but Mikasa has no part in this! Armin has no part in this! They’ve got nothing to do with it at all!”  

“Liar!”

“We can’t trust you!”

“All you’ve been doing is speculating and making one-sided guesses that are convenient for you! What are you all so afraid of anyway?!” Eren yells, and his voice cracks, “You’ve never seen a titan! You’ve never fought one! You can’t face anything outside the walls, much less the forests! You just sit on your behinds and grow fat on the deaths of others! You’re pathetic cowards!”

He won’t stand for this. They don’t know what he went through to keep his family alive, they don’t know how hard life was during the in-between, how even with the physical training, entering the military was almost a relief. In the military, they had a roof over their heads every night and food in their bellies, a proper infirmary with technology so recent that Eren was allowed to take surplus supplies and outdated things for himself. He doesn’t notice how the post creaks behind him, how his chains rattle as he strains at the civilians, his eyes wide and green, so green. He cannot hear how his voice has crawled into a low growl, the echo of a beastly roar behind it.

“If you can’t deal with it, then just stay behind the walls forever! But don’t drag other people down with you! Don’t hinder those who will fight, who _are_ fighting! _So just shut up and let me shoulder it all!_ ”

His snarl rings in the room in the several seconds before Captain Levi kicks him brutally across the face. As his head whips to the side and his tooth is propelled against the stone floor, he sees Armin and Mikasa in the stands, his sister pale and furious, Armin afraid, but his gaze wary and cunning. Eren’s cheek throbs but he has no time for recovery—the Captain lands a solid hit to his diaphragm and he chokes on air, feels the acid of his stomach try to crawl up the length on his esophagus. Without a doubt, Eren thinks hazily, through the building indignation, the Captain is strong. The blows rock his body, powerful enough that he rebounds off the post and his wrists are beginning to bleed and chafe from having his body thrown this way and that. But he cannot fight back here. He has to fight however he can, and here in the tribunal, where he is a witch and a monster, to fight physically is to fail.

His skull cracks onto stone, and he coughs and splutters, blood trickling from his nose and head, bubbling over his lips, his heavy breaths laborious and hitching with pain. The Captain’s boot grinds into his hair, and Eren feels like a too-ripe grape, his head about to be crushed, popped, enough that the next infirmary apprentice can take one look at him and know he’s a goner.

“I don’t know about you,” the Captain says, his voice laced with boredom, “But I personally find pain to be the most efficient method of discipline. What you need is to be trained like a dog, not a man. And it’s easier to kick you while you’re on your knees.”

“Captain!” Niles Dawk shouts, droplets of sweat beginning to slide down his face. “It’s dangerous.”

“What is?” the Captain asks flatly, grinding the sole of is boot into Eren’s scalp.  

“What if you trigger his transformation into a titan?”

“What are you saying? Weren’t you going to dissect him?” Levi scoffs. He hauls Eren’s head upright by the hair.  “This piss-poor brat,” Levi drawls, “Killed around 20 titans before running out of steam. No match for me, of course, but if he is an enemy, whatever intelligence he has in that tiny brain of his will make him more dangerous. And what will you do? Anyone persecuting him should consider that fact. Do you really think you could kill him?”

Erwin steps forward. “Generalissimo, I have a proposition. Much about Trainee Jaeger’s titan powers are still unknown, and as such, he will always be a potential threat. In the event that Trainee Jaeger is placed into the Scouting Legion, Captain Levi will be able to conduct countermeasures if need be.”

“Oh?” the Generalissimo murmurs, “Captain Levi, will you be able to carry out these…countermeasures?”

“I’m certain I can kill him. The only problem is I doubt I can do any less.”

“And what of the inland situation,” Dawk demands.

“The activities of the Scouting Legion depend on the stability of society,” Erwin replies, calm and cool. “It was never my intention to disregard the problems of the inner wall. I’d like to calm the inner wall’s worries by proving to the public that Eren is an asset to mankind in the next mission outside the walls. I would like you to postpone your judgment until then.”

There is a wave of relieved muttering from the audience.

“So he’s leaving the walls…”

“…maybe he’ll just die out there…”

The Generalissimo makes his decision. “Alright then. Trainee Jaeger, you are to be put under the command of the Scouting Legion and are to be watched by Captain Levi. You will participate in the Scouting expedition within the month, and will return here based on your performance. Court dismissed!”


	6. Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The was most self indulgent chapter. Hadn't quite figured out Levi's characterization at the time, so he's much harsher here than he is in later works.
> 
> Delves more into landfill life/backstory, so please be aware of mentions regarding child trafficking.

The old castle that serves as Scouting Legion headquarters has what seems to be an inexhaustible amount of rooms, and Eren spends his first two days with the Special Operations Squad cleaning and re-cleaning them incessantly, until they satisfy Levi’s stringent standards. Hanji’s enthused lecturing on titans keeps him awake for the night in between, and he spends his third night in the basement bone-tired from the activities of the day, having bit his palms and fingers bloody to no effect, only to achieve partial titan transformation when picking up a teaspoon.

If it hadn’t happened to him, he would have thought it ridiculous. On one hand, he’s relieved that there’s the implication that the transformation _is_ controllable, and that he might have mastery of his titan self one day, if he lives long enough. On the other hand, seeing the squad members full of insensate fear, affected to the point of hysteria, had confirmed his worst insecurities. It seems silly, childish, for a monster to dream of being human, but he had hoped for comfort, for familiarity, friendliness, and perhaps most naively, he had hoped for trust. And even though the squad had apologized, even though they’d tried to prove to him that they trusted him, he can’t erase it from his mind, the smoke clearing, the blades aimed for his throat, the choked, panicked cries and accusations. He tiptoes, wary and half-terrified of the reactions of people around him, paranoid in a way he has never been, even in the landfill. At least back then, he knew Mikasa and Armin had his back, and he had theirs.

His basement room is cold and lonely, reminiscent of the court dungeons. Iron bars are embedded into the masonry of the ceiling and floor, surrounding a room of decent size. There’s no need to call it anything other than what it truly is—this is just another cell, another cage, possibly the same prison holdings used when the castle was in its prime. And now, it is to hold him, another condition of his continued stay with the Scouting Legion. While he has no guards, he is to be chained to the bed at night, and the iron gate of the bars is to be locked. He can’t be entirely ungrateful, since things are still better than they were. The chains are long enough for him to be able to move his arms in comfort, and the cell has been outfitted with a crude but practical bureau, a sturdy sidetable, and a crap bed made of several wooden crates with a makeshift, straw-stuffed pallet put atop them for cushioning. There’s ample space for him to put personal belongings, though Eren no longer has any to fill up the space with, but that might change once the Legion goes through and claims all the unwanted junk they’ve found throughout the rooms while cleaning. But for the moment, his only possessions are the extra shirts and changes of uniform he’d received upon his court release.  

Every night, a special ops member sees him down to his room, turns away politely as he changes into his only set of sleepwear. Reassurances, snide comments, commentary on the events of the day all fall flat here, stifled by the stillness of the air and the coffin-like silence of the surroundings. Isolated from the main level of the castle and lacking windows, the only sounds that can be heard from the basement are the occasional thumps and thuds of boot treads and the distant noises of the inhabitants living in the room right above Eren’s enclosure. Seeing as that room is the only one within hearing distance of the basement cell, the special ops squad has taken it as their lodgings, so if Eren does anything, or if something unexpected happens, the Corporal and Commander can be alerted right away while the disturbance is investigated.

Eren’s wrists are thin, and even Auruo’s hand encircles them easily, an act that forces the squad member to still his mouth when he locks the manacles in place around them. In Erd’s and Gunter’s hands, Eren’s had seemed immeasurably young and small, and though none of them are particularly distant in terms of age, save for the Captain, Commander, and Squad Leaders, the experience and hardship contained within those few years is enough to make a difference. Eren is yet naïve, unprepared, unready, and his body is similar, still unable to carry any significant muscle, still growing, still shifting and changing. And now, even his body is unfamiliar to him, a foreign entity that shifts and changes, heals without warning, has a will of its own and does not listen to the commands of his mind or his heart. Even three days in, the turn of the lock is damning to Eren’s ears. Every time, he looks out from his cage, tries to follow the wings on his enforcers’ backs as they leave, but the lit candle left on his side table is not bright enough for him to see any further into the darkness. The flame flickers once, twice. He always ends up blowing it out; he would rather stay in the dark than be haunted by shadows.

He tries to count the days until he sees Mikasa and Armin again, assuming that he will, but he loses track. Training runs him ragged—the Captain’s squad is, after all, the cream of the crop, and the training is not gentle. Bruises matching the strap patterns of the maneuver gear snake about his body at the end of each day, disappear when he wakes with the sun each morning, reappear through a day’s rigorous practice. His balance has improved the slightest bit, as has his speed, but he’ll have to work hard to get onto the level of the Captain’s Squad. He sits in on tactics meetings, pushes himself and tries to engrave every bit of advice given into his body by force. It is like no training he has had before, but in some ways it is a relief to see no one’s blood but his own, and the only times he has to see bones and organs anymore is in the dark intervals of night where he wakes, gasping, to total darkness, cold sweat on his brow.

To be honest, he likes being with the horses more than anything else these days. As the newbie, the horses are entirely his responsibility. He’s become incredibly efficient in putting on and taking off the tack, and the horses seem to like him just fine, nickering when he comes near, even during patrols. They nuzzle him on days when he’s particularly upset, search his hands and pockets for the rare treats he gives them when the Legion can afford it. The Captain’s mare is surprisingly affectionate, butts and rubs his shoulder with her head whenever he walks in with new hay, or with a brush. Simple creatures, dying simple deaths with each smash of a titan’s clumsy hand or foot, but they soothe him, make him think of a time when he, Mikasa and Armin played near the shallow pools and lakes deep in the forest, spying on woodland creatures. They remind him of something softer, with their gentle nudges and friendly snorts, the way they trot circles around him in eagerness when he gets them ready for a practice run, the feathery softness of their manes and the minute flickers of their ears. Horses are uncomplicated, simpler and kinder than a great many other things in his life.

His life with the Scouting Legion feels oddly sheltered, shielded from the outside world. He hears nothing of the aftermath of his trial, or anything of his classmates. He does not even know if the particulars of his abilities have been released, or how many people know of him. He doesn’t know the details of the investigation they conducted during the lead up to his trial, and frets and worries over the information that could be used against him, wonders how much the special ops members know and what thoughts they won’t share with him. It is one thing for them to know that he killed two men as a child since it has already held in court as a case of self-defense, but it is another thing for them to know about all the rest, about the few, harrowing years spent toiling in the landfills. The idea of trust, of faith, of loyalty, continues to weigh heavily on his mind. Even his admiration of Captain Levi does not stop Eren from suspecting his superior’s words, or his motives.

None of this eases when Petra fetches him for an audience with the Captain and the Commander at the end of the week. He cannot remember for the life of him how many mazelike passageways Petra has led him down, each one looking completely identical, and he is almost surprised when they stop in front of a large door, heavier than the others that he has seen. She knocks and sends him a drooping attempt at a reassuring smile—it’s clear that she doesn’t know what they want either.

“I’ve brought Eren, sirs,” she announces in a crisp, clear voice.

The deep timbre of Erwin’s voice is easily heard through the thick wood. “Have him come in, will you, Petra? You can go back to your duties.”

So Eren forges on ahead alone, breathing out shortly and squaring his shoulders before tugging the door open, walks before the desk where the Commander is seated in a worn, majestic armchair, and snaps off the sharpest salute he can. The desk is covered in neat stacks of paper, some of them maps, some of them paperwork and logistics matters. Small blots of ink dot the desk’s dimpled wooden surface, and the wall behind the Commander is lined with bookshelves, sagging from the weight of their tomes. The Captain is settled in a wooden chair backed up against one of the shelves, sipping what smells like the remnants of this morning’s diluted coffee. Coffee is expensive after all, so the Legion gets as much out of the grounds as it can, when it can.

“At ease. How are you doing, Eren?” the Commander asks, grabbing a folder off one of the paper stacks, fixing him with a blue stare and genial smile.

“Everything is going well, sir,” Eren rattles off. He’s not too confident about how he’s doing at all these days, so he might as well be an unquantifiable level of “well”. The Captain snorts and mutters a snide remark from his corner, low enough that Eren can’t understand the words, but it’s just as well. Eren can’t afford to lose his temper here.

“I’m glad to hear that,” the Commander replies. He flicks the folder open with a deft hand, holds out the top stack of reports to Eren. “This,” he says, voice deepening, getting straight to business, “is the record of investigations undertaken by the Military Police during your trial. Aside from our good friend Nile Dawk, the MPs have been quite happy to relinquish any materials related to your court case to the Scouting Legion. We’re currently going over the contents of the investigations, and comparing them with our most recent observations,” Erwin says nonchalantly, and even if Eren knows he’s being observed like a beast in a cage, it’s another thing to have it said to his face so clearly.

He gestures to the stack of papers that Eren holds in his hands. “In the course of our own examination of the court papers, we’ve noticed several inconsistencies and loose trails in these documents. We were hoping that you could fill them in for us, so please take a look.”

The Captain sets his mug down on the shelf behind him with a none too subtle clink of porcelain on wood. “What he means is the Military Police are shit at investigations and cut corners when they could,” he says shortly, ignoring the sharp glance Erwin gives him. “Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for you, this means we’ve caught a couple gaps in your history. A couple patterns and coincidences. But considering that you’re a troublesome titan-shifting brat whose memories and relatives are so _conveniently_ missing, any coincidence that involves you means fuck-all to us. So you better hurry up and spit out whatever you’re hiding, otherwise we’ll never get those MP shitheads off our backs.”

“I beg your pardon, sir…?” Eren asks, the line of his mouth thin and pale, the strength of his grip crinkling the papers.

The Captain snarls in exasperation. “Are all of you new trainees this brainless?” he demands. “It’s another one of those goddamn conditions. Whatever information is missing from the records is information we have to pull out of you. So stop dicking around, read the report, and fess up.”

Eren clenches his jaw, a chill rushing down the back of his neck, and opens the packet.

He doesn’t like what he finds. Originally, there were only the notes taken down by the Military Police during interrogations and interviews, but the commentary Commander Erwin has laid down beside them pieces together a different story. Vials of alcohol from his medical pouch whose production numbers were traced back to Rose apothecaries, rumors and mentions of him, Mikasa, and Armin from the streets and from the landfills, a spreading tale of child ghosts spotted along the borders of the forests closest to the slums. Their reported disappearance from the slums and alleyways earmarked around the same time, and the gradual decline of “happy leaf” sales in the underground markets just weeks later.

“The new trainees will be coming tomorrow,” the Commander mentions in an offhanded manner. “We thought it would be more efficient to ask you first.”

Eren gets the message loud and clear. Either Mikasa, Armin, or both have joined the Scouting Legion, and if the Commander doesn’t get the information from him, he’ll try and pry the information out of them instead. But only Eren has all the answers, and the evidence is already on paper—he can’t lie his way out of this, and if the answers aren’t satisfactory, he’ll just end up back in the hands of the Military Police.

He hands the packet back, looks the Commander in the eye, tries to settle his nerves. “What do you want to know?” he asks, mouth dry.

Captain Levi makes an irritated clicking noise with his tongue, clearly short of patience. The Commander quells him with another look, and picks up the abandoned fountain pen tucked to one side of the paper.

“Why don’t we start from the first report,” he says lightly, flipping through the packet. “We know that you were working in the landfills with your friends after the fall of Wall Maria, but the lot records from the Military Police in charge of the slums show that your presence in the slum lots was spotty at best. Several eyewitness reports have also mentioned you in conjunction with several Maria rebellions and protests. Would you care to fill us in on your absence from the slums, and your role in the rebellions?”

“With all due respect, sir,” Eren begins, annoyed, rather than angry, “The slum lot records are far from accurate. I thought that was common knowledge, sir.” Captain Levi scoffs, shifts in his seat.

“Records on Maria refugees are crap,” he spits, “And the Scouting Legion’s job doesn’t involve correcting those records.”

“Levi is right,” the Commander confirms with a sigh, “Administrative and civil policies have always fallen under the jurisdiction of the Military Police. If you could, Eren, would you elaborate on the situation in the slums in your explanation please?”

Eren doesn’t speak for a while, gathering his composure, hands balled into fists at his sides. “The slum lots don’t mean anything,” he finally says. “It’s a useless system. It’s an excuse for the Military Police to raid the slums and take people away, but everyone knows that if you end up in jail, you only have a 30% chance of making it back out. If you want a lot with premium space to yourself, you’ve either got to have a connection to the Military Police, or you’ve got to have a bribe ready, and most lots have way more people on them than are registered. The closer you get to the forests, the more squatters there’ll be on each lot, and it’s crowded, so there’s always sicknesses going around, and people die for various reasons. So the amount of people in the lots is always changing.”

“Which one were you?” Levi demands.

“A little bit of everything,” Eren replies quietly. “Not a lot of people liked us, but sometimes we were lucky enough to find a family that would let us squat with them. Most of the time we were on the very edge of the lots near the forests, or we hid in alleyways.” He slowly stretches his hands out by his sides, fingers the straps of the maneuver gear on his thigh. “It wasn’t uncommon. The slums only ever contain about a third of us at a time, and plenty of us have traveled further inside Rose to meet up with others living near other parts of the walls.”

“And the rebellions?” Erwin asks, scribbling away.

“We weren’t involved,” Eren says promptly, defiantly, the spark returning to his eyes. “Most people don’t get involved because it’s too dangerous. I used to peddle around some of the public squares, where a lot of the protests take place, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone said they saw me.”

“I believe that brings us to the subject of several rumors regarding you and your friends,” Erwin murmurs, flipping to another page. “During civilian interviews, quite a couple people mentioned that it was unwise to look for information regarding the three of you, and that caution should be taken if the Military Police decided to track you down.” He looks up briefly, meets Eren’s eyes. “Incidentally, there have been reports by Rose citizens of child ghosts and spirits wandering in the forests, right around the time eyewitness reports mention your absence. You seem to have gained some notoriety in the refugee group, enough that your disappearances were notable and above all, memorable. How did that come about? And, if you would, please tell us the reasons behind these rumors.”

Eren’s lips tighten again, and his body almost vibrating with tension. “Children are rare in the slums in the first place—“

“Bullshit,” the Captain drawls, reclaiming his coffee. “There were plenty of orphans crawling around after the recovery operation. A lot of them died over the next couple months, but there were enough that seeing children wouldn’t have been strange.” He takes a slow, measured sip, his unmoving stare centered on Eren’s own cornered glance. “You better fess up, Jaeger. We’re not taking any crap from you this time.”

“Eren,” the Commander says gently, as if it would soothe him, as if it would make him feel safe, “This information will not be made publicly available, and this may be a condition of your custody, but this is also information the Scouting Legion needs to get a better understanding of you, and by extension, your titan shifting abilities.”

With a distant chill, Eren realizes that they’re not trying to gather information to exploit him with; they’re trying to profile him. He’s a decent actor, but he’s horrible at lying, and with his nerves already on edge, he would have no chance at getting by both the Commander and Captain. He’s not like Armin, who can spin a yarn on the spot and cover all the gaps. He’s too stupid. The threat of returning to the Military Police looms. Blind faith, Eren thinks, is a scary thing. Not having control is a scary thing, but he hasn’t been in control for a while now. If nothing else, he can trust the Scouting Legion to keep its own interests in mind, interests that most likely involve his prolonged survival, his prolonged usage.

“….traffickers,” Eren admits shakily. Erwin’s head snaps up, eyes narrowed, and the Captain’s scowl turns sour.

“Excuse me?”

“Traffickers,” Eren says again, more firmly, meeting the Commander’s gaze. “That’s why. We…we were hunted by traffickers.”

“Explain,” Captain Levi orders shortly.

“Mikasa’s an Oriental,” Eren says bluntly. It’s not like they couldn’t tell just by looking at her. “Armin’s got a pretty face, and he’s small.” He hesitates, eyes darting to the side. “…and they used to say that my eyes were really green.”

“If you got attacked by traffickers so often, how the hell are you still here?” the Captain asks rudely, and for good reason. A trio of children constantly attacked by adult traffickers would have a very low chance of escape.

“We—we set up the alleyways,” Eren says, and his eyes are wide, “Armin gave us a formation. At first we just fought them off. Mikasa was really strong back then, too. But they kept coming back.”

“Did you kill them?” Captain Levi asks immediately, and his face gives away no trace of contempt, no trace of blame or fear, his ever-present stare steady and calm.

“Yes,” Eren says breathlessly, green, green eyes unblinking. “We did.”

“And the bodies?”

“I don’t know,” Eren says, and his hands are shaking, “The ones that were stabbed or cut we just left in the alleyways. But I don’t know about the others.”

“The others?” Erwin repeats, voice hard. He’s stopped writing. His hands are clasped together tightly, and the skin about his knuckles is white.

“Poison,” Eren murmurs around a tight throat, swallowing. “Symptoms within an hour. Death within two to six hours, usually from paralysis of the heart or lungs. It was clean. Efficient. No one would notice the death of a trafficker or two, and even if they did, the bodies would only look like they died of suffocation.”

“How were you able to get your hands on poison?” the Captain asks, voice just this side of incredulous.

“I made it. It’s a medical component and helps with different illnesses when used in small doses,” Eren says, remnants of anxiety in his voice. “And it’s absorbed through the skin. I prepared as much as I could when we got to squat on the slum lots, kept it on me just in case. All I did was make the extraction as pure as possible, and aim for the face.”

The room lapses into silence, interrupted only by the sound of Eren’s uneasy shifting from foot to foot. His palms are sweaty, and he wipes them as discreetly as he can against the side of his pants, but it doesn’t stop Captain Levi from giving him a look of disgust when he does it.

“Jaeger, you don’t actually regret it do you?” the Captain asks him, and Eren sometimes wonders how it is that this man always sees through him, always asks the right questions, the worst questions, how it is that Eren can do anything but lay himself bare at his feet, so transparent he must seem to him.

“...No.” Eren replies, and the word almost seems to ring around the room, strengthens him as the words tumble from his mouth, fueled by a familiar fire. “No, I don’t. It was traffickers the first time, too, when we were nine. They killed Mikasa’s parents and they wanted to sell her to people who would do _things_ to her. As if I would let piece of shit traffickers do that to her again, or to Armin. You fight, and if you win you live, and if you lose you die. They lost.”

The Captain leans back in his chair, and Eren thinks he looks almost satisfied with the answer. “Not bad,” he says, just as he did on day they confronted each other in the torch-lit darkness of Eren’s court cell.

“…and this continued throughout your time at the landfills?” Erwin asks, and the pen is in his hand again, but he seems almost distracted, spinning the pen in circles with nimble fingers.

“Ah, no,” Eren continues, a little more forthright, and he tilts his head in thought. “I think some of the traffickers started thinking we were a challenge or some kind of prize, so we got attacked more and more often. But we were worried about the bodies and being tracked down, so in the end we decided to leave the slum lots and alleyways altogether.”

“What was the body count?” Captain Levi interrupts, before Eren can go any further.

“…I’m not sure?” Eren seems anxious again, and it’s not exactly reassuring. “The poison makes things a little uncertain. But if you assume that everyone we poisoned died…it would be pretty high.”

“How high?”

“…we probably stabbed and killed somewhere around eight to ten traffickers,” Eren says, “We poisoned anything from ten to fifteen traffickers in addition to that. They liked to attack in groups, three to six people, and the poison let us get away without fighting too much. We got attacked something like eight times in the first year, and maybe nine or ten the year after that.”

The Captain raises his eyebrows and settles back in his chair with a creak, sips at his coffee again, as Erwin scribbles away at the reports, a strong furrow in his brow.

“You left the lots and the alleyways? Where did you go?” Erwin asks, as he flips past several pages and sets his pen to another report.

“We lived in the forest,” Eren says. “Scrounged in the alleys for some supplies, built ourselves a shelter deep in the brush and stayed there. We hid supplies in some tree hollows and moss pits. Plenty of game, too.”

“And the traffickers didn’t follow you in?” Erwin asks.

The forests are tricky territory. There is superstition that surrounds them and those who live outside the walls, and the forests themselves almost seem like another kind of wall to the people who live inside Maria, Rose, and Sina, another type of demarcation to be treated with caution, talked about in hissed whispers, just as talk of the outside world is forbidden. Hunter clans like Sasha’s, mountain villages, like Reiner’s and Bertholdt’s had been more accepting of the forests, more understanding of the role that forests played in supplying them with resources, but exploration had always been probing, shallow, and small prayers and offerings were made in tribute to the animals killed and brought from the forests before they were eaten. No one traveled too far inside, wary of what would emerge. But Mikasa’s family had lived further into the forests, and Grisha had brought Eren far into the dense network of trees in their search for medicinal herbs and plants, for the special moss that only grew around a particular lake’s edge, or the cheerful flowers that grew high on the trees, sprouting blossoms from where they had lodged roots in the trunk. Even the Scouting Legion held some apprehension toward the forests, not because of the trees or the animals, but the memories of titans bursting through the brush, clearing the tops of trees and reaching down, grasping for cables and the people attached to them.

“I…I made a deal,” Eren says, almost inaudible, and the anxiety is back. “Working the landfills wasn’t making us enough, and traffickers could still try to snatch us on our way back from the fields. And winter was coming.”

“Does this have to do with ‘happy leaf’?” the Captain asks, arms crossed.

Eren nods mutely. “Armin did a bit of eavesdropping and spying for us, found us a name and a dropoff spot. It’s not hard, since a lot of people in the slums use it, and the dealers are usually in the same boat as we are, get the lower quality stuff from the leftover Sina lines, can’t afford to lace it because if your batch gets tainted you’re toast—no one will ever buy from you again. People still need to work, after all.” A corner of his mouth quirks up in wry approval. “He did us one better and found us a MP supplier, one of the ones hooked into the Rose network. So I go to him, tell him that I’ve got something good, something that no one else on the market has. I’ve got nothing to lose, there’s no reason for me to trick him or anything, and he can get a trial period of a month. He tests it on a subordinate, who likes it so much he blabs about to everyone who will listen. So the boss takes a hit. By the time it actually gets on market there’s enough demand for it that they sell out in a week.”

Erwin looks perturbed. “You aren’t talking about happy leaf, are you?”

Eren shakes his head. “Happy leaf gives you a high, this stuff is a hallucinogen. It doesn’t have any effects of physical dependence, and it makes people feel like they’re more connected to others. In any case, I basically had a monopoly. If someone took me out, there wouldn’t be a supply, and I didn’t teach anyone how to find it or grow it properly. I made sure Mikasa and Armin had some poison on them too, in case someone tried to blackmail me, but it turns out I didn’t need to. One of the dealers from Rose tried to find his own, ended up poisoning one of his subordinates to death.”

“You’re talking about Caps?” the Captain cuts in sharply. “Shit, you mean you were the one to put Caps on the market?!”

“It was perfect,” Eren says, looking down at his hands, wringing them. “I’d prepped them before for my father’s terminal patients, so I already knew what to do. Caps mushrooms aren’t commonly found outside of the forests, and there are multiple species, each with a different chemical potency, and they sometimes get confused with poisonous strains, so they’re hard to get. They’re relatively nondestructive, and as far as side effects go it’s mostly panic attacks and mania. And some of the apothecary dropoff points traded me in medical supplies, which is how I got the alcohol. By then I’d already gotten a super potent strain bred out, and we were so noticeable that no one suspected us to be the suppliers. People just dropped by my weekend peddling spot to pick up their stuff and went on their way.”

“Wait, Eren, you’re essentially saying that your role as supplier was important enough that the Rose network was protecting you and your friends from traffickers?” Erwin asks, pen flying across the paper.

“Basically. They didn’t actively protect us or anything, but they got word out that the supplier had called the area off limits because he couldn’t afford to attract suspicion if more people went missing, and because there’d be another riot. And one of the rebellions cropped up soon afterwards too, so the traffickers backed off.”

“Little shithead, you got really fucking lucky,” the Captain snaps. He kicks at the leg of the Commander’s chair. “Caps isn’t as strong as the shit they sell in Sina underground, so it doesn’t really get black market attention, and since there’s only one supplier, circulation hasn’t spread that far. It’s only popular among Rose wageworkers and the Maria refugees, since it lets them zone out and work the next day without turning into useless puddles of crap. You’d be wrecked if you got into the actual black market. Maria landfill territory? That’s small time dealing.”

“We knew,” Eren replies, plaintive, beseeching, shoulders tense, “Armin told me all of that, he tried to get me to drop it, Mikasa too. But winter was coming and we didn’t have enough money and Armin was getting sick and Mikasa got cut by one of the traffickers and I was—“ He swallows, and his voice twists with an almost visible frustration, cracks at the edges. “I’m not strong. I’m not.”

“What happened to the network when you enlisted?” Erwin asks gently, strategic as ever, snipping short the conversation before it gets any more awkward.

“I handed it over to one of the families we used squat with,” Eren says. “They managed to get out of the walls together, and some of the kids aren’t old enough to work yet.”

Erwin hums a little in approval, and the room fills with sound of pen nib scratching on paper. “It seems like you haven’t let your medical skills go to waste. Would you mind lending them to the Legion along with your titan shifting abilities?”

Eren’s response is subdued. “I already have, sir. As a trainee, I was pulled from class to help administer emergency services to the Scouting Legion in the infirmary. It would be an honor to put those skills to work again. But, won’t there be a backlash….?”

“Don’t worry about that, brat,” the Captain snaps. “At least you’re useful in this respect, even if you are a teenager who’s piss-poor at cleaning, and makes an even shittier titan. If we’ve got a goddamn field medic we might be able to bring more men home.”

“Yes, sir,” Eren whispers. Too close. The Captain is always too close.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Eren, this has certainly been a big help,” Erwin announces, shutting the folder. “I’d also like to remind you that we’ll be going through the castle remnants tomorrow once the new recruits settle in. You’ll be getting your belongings back from the evidence rooms as well, so report to this office at ten hundred sharp. If you don’t know the way, ask Erd or Gunter. You’re dismissed.”

“Sir!”

Eren’s glad to leave, happy to escape the confines of an office full to the brim with his anxiety and fear, his uncertainty and weakness, the office that contains the one man that he just can’t fool, no matter how he tries. He might as well be nothing more than a pane of glass, crystalline, easy to break and shatter and look through.

He’ll have to work hard to close those shutters. He’s already given away more than he could afford.


	7. Interlude: Connie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some outside POV, sorta-kinda dwelling on the suddenness of titans going from myth to reality. And also how the Shiganshina trio maybe brought that closer to home while in the trainee camp. Some Connie and Sasha hints I guess, though I didn't really intend for them to be in a relationship.

If it were any other day, the barracks would be teeming with trainees rushing in and out of the showers at dawn in all states of undress, hollering at each other, asking each other how Bertholdt slept and wondering if it would be sunny or cloudy outside, laughing at Armin’s spectacular bedhead and tripping over the straps of the maneuver gear as they try to slip into the harnesses as quickly as possible. Instead, the complex is deathly silent as the twenty-one Scouting Legion recruits trickle out the door, heavy packs slung over their shoulders.

Connie can’t help himself from frowning, and he shivers a little under his cloak, not entirely because of the morning chill. Swinging himself onto his horse, he settles his pack behind him. The soldiers heading to Garrison had all left the previous night, and the newly minted members of the Scouting Legion had spent the remainder of their time packing away their meager possessions. Three years of military living had ensured that none of them had much material property to speak of, but there were still small things, trinkets brought from home, bits and bobs from trips into town. Some people were marked by what little they owned, like Mikasa’s scarf, or Ymir’s barrette.

He remembers the significance of property in the beginning of training too, three Outies entering the program from the landfills, only one spare set of clothing each, a sparse handful of bronze coins shared among them. Opinion on Eren, Mikasa and Armin had been split in the early days, either teased mercilessly by those who tried to assert their dominance through their socioeconomic status, or held in a kind of fearful awe for witnessing the attack of the Colossal Titan. A third group of recruits also actively persecuted them for being Outies, and while Reiner and Bertholdt were big enough to leave alone, Armin, Annie, Mikasa and Eren were not. But Mikasa, Armin and Eren traveled in a group, and it wasn’t long before Mikasa’s unbelievable strength and Eren’s no-holds-barred brawling warded the bullies away, paralleled by Annie’s brutally efficient takedowns. In some ways, it had only perpetuated the stereotype, but half a year in, and it was clear that none of the recruits from Wall Maria were possessed or different in any way. If anything, Eren had borne the brunt of it with his lack of brain-to-mouth filter and titan-mindedness.

Back then, having Eren and Armin as bunkmates had brought the threat of the titans in close quarters. Their occasional nightmares were loud, accompanied by thrashing, sobbing and screaming, and they relied on each other to wind down. Sometimes it was Eren, pressed into Armin’s chest, training twice as hard the day after, tense and angry, and sometimes it was Armin, arms wrapped securely around Eren’s waist, morose and quiet the next day, not even bothering to talk to Bertholdt about their textbook material. There were times, too, when the boys woke up to find Mikasa added to the pile, clutching at Armin like a lifeline, legs intertwined with Eren’s, and sometimes Eren and Armin wouldn’t be in bed at all, their covers ruffled, but long gone cold. The three of them rarely left each other alone, always keeping an eye on their surroundings, startling easily. They ate like Sasha, spooning the crappy mess food into their mouths greedily, always a little worried and anxious when waiting for the cooks to come out. The impact the titans could have was written all over their behaviors and lifestyles, and interaction with them made those facts hard to avoid.

And now, that was reality for them too. Half of the bunks had been empty for several days now, and Connie would jolt awake from night terrors to see Jean on the other side of the room, crying silently, unable to sleep, his bunk now a single. Armin, too, does not sleep, whiles away the night with his lantern, the oil dwindling, one shadow behind the curtains where there had once been two. He does not cry again; his bunk still smells of grass and flowers.

When the Military Police had barged in a week ago, tearing down the grasses, herbs, and flowers Eren had collected over the years, ransacking the bunk and tearing apart the mattress and pillows, sneering and laughing and making crude suggestions about monsters and the people in bed with them, it took Reiner’s arm across the chest to stop Armin from lunging at them, screaming and yelling, blue eyes wild. Mikasa stood at the door with the rest of the girls who were attracted by the commotion, dark circles under her eyes, face so sallow and pale that the red of her scarf stood out against her skin like the stain of old blood, the scar on her cheek dark and spiteful. Her eyes were murderous pits, and the Military Police were the ones to flinch away from her gaze as they left.

“Fuck!” Armin had shrieked, viciously kicking the ruined bunk with his foot before sinking down onto the torn pallet, sinking fingers into his hair. He trembled as Mikasa settled down beside him, their heads nestled together. Connie remembers looking at that ruined bed in wonder, confused as to when the smell of Eren’s weird plants and burning lantern oil became so familiar to him. The bed had suddenly seemed so large, no longer surrounded by satchets and pouches and books upon books. And Mikasa, Armin and Eren had been so excited when they had bought a heavy tome of fairy tales together with the first of their military salary, not treats, clothes or luxuries like the others, staying up late to read their favorite stories to each other, burning the night oil and muffling carefree laughter behind the bed curtains.

“Eren’s things,” Armin had near snarled into the crook of Mikasa’s neck, and the arm she had wrapped around his thin shoulders was like a claw, her fingers digging into the meat of his arm.

“Not all of them,” she had hissed back, wraith-like. “They didn’t get all of them.”

And they hadn’t, because last night, packing for a short lifetime in the Scouting Legion, Armin had pried up a loose floorboard near his bunk and packed, not just for himself, but Eren, too. More books, more plants, small, unlabeled white boxes that looked a little like the ones in the infirmary closets. Half of it was buried at the bottom of Armin’s pack, the other half partitioned to Mikasa. Armin had run careful fingers over embossed book covers, read every label and checked every cork and lid for a proper seal, silent, stony, and lonely through it all. Connie can’t really imagine it, having a friend on trial, having a friend _be a titan_. Armin and Mikasa have never talked about it openly, but when Connie thinks of meeting Eren again, the apprehension, the fear rises in him. As much as he struggles with the concept of Eren before and Eren after, he struggles equally with the idea that he’s a soldier, a Scout.

“Mikasa has nightmares,” Sasha had whispered to him the night before, after squad selection. Her voice was soft, smoothed over with the slight burr of her slipping country accent. “An’ Mikasa’s strong. If _she_ has nightmares then what will I be able to do? We couldn’t even bring that titan down, during Trost.

“But I saw Jean looking around afterward, looking for his family. Half the town got crushed. An’ I was thinking that if I was scared, how would the people back home feel? They didn’t even get training like we did, they don’t have maneuver gear or anything like that.” Sitting back to back, Sasha had turned, curled a little closer, nestled her head in the hollow between Connie’s neck and shoulder. Her hair was down for once, and it had tickled at his skin, wavy and slightly coarse. “It’s scary,” she had whispered, burrowing into him, like a small, scared animal. “They felt so far away before, the titans.”

Connie’s seen the bodies in the streets, civilians crushed by rubble, comrades turned to pulp, splattered messily against pavement and plaster. Trost is a big town; his little village would have devastated. Smashed to the ground. His mother, grateful for his remittances, is probably waiting for news of his appointment to the Military Police. He wonders if she’ll cry when she gets his next letter.

They’re riding through well-trodden paths in dense Rose forest. A shiver races up his spine as he remembers children’s tales of spirits who target women and children for their tender flesh, break men in half and slip into their skins to eat their families. They aren’t true, the same way the Outies aren’t true, but it doesn’t help that every time the Scouting Legion plunges into the forests outside the walls, only 10% of them return, though, instead of spirits, it’s the titans that eat them alive.

He spurs his horse on with a squeeze of his heels, following the peers ahead of him. The Squad Leaders head their individual groups, and shout and laugh and joke with each other. Still unsorted into squads, the recruits follow behind in a large clump, quiet and morose.

Someone hisses his name, and when he turns to look, Sasha shoves a peach into his hand, the fuzz scraping against his skin, fingers digging into the soft fruitmeat.

“You missed breakfast, right?” she whisper-yells, giving him the most ridiculous, lopsided attempt at a wink he’s ever seen in his life, this brave hunter girl.

He laughs, loud and long, happy she is still there.


	8. Part 6

The bowels of the castle are frigid, perhaps even colder than the air outside, but Eren does not shiver or shake, searches for Erwin’s office with small clouds of condensation billowing from his nose and mouth. His breath hovers in the air like smoke, a side effect of his higher body temperature. The Special Ops members had complained of the freezing forest mornings, rubbing their arms, shaking in their boots even after scrubbing the bathrooms down vigorously for hours, even after lifting heavy buckets of water to the different areas of the castle, and  they had said that even sweating didn’t help because the moisture simply invited a stronger chill. Eren only noticed that if his hand brushed Petra’s, or if Gunter stood beside him, they would comment on how warm he was, how lucky he must be, but they never came close. They lingered around him, soaking up what residual heat he emitted, but they didn’t touch him, didn’t grab a hand and drag him close the way Mikasa had done in landfill winters. He felt like an object, like a campfire or a lantern. Gather round, gather close, but don’t touch, or you’ll burn.

Carefully, he steers his mind away from the subject of fire, tries not to recall the greasy ropes of smoke that had spun up in columns when they had returned to Trost to recruit new trainees yesterday night. The acrid, sickening smell of burnt human flesh lingered in the air, and as they moved to the outdoor stage he had seen clear remnants of the huge pyres for mass cremations. He remembers them well, because they used to dispose of the corpses in the landfill that way. Piled into wheelbarrows, orphans with distended bellies, men shot full of holes or cut into pieces, women with calloused fingers and broken backs, worn down from hard work. The dead rotting in the alleyways, crawling with flies and maggots, the three of them shielding their noses as much as they could when they settled in for the night, refusing to think of the corpses that they left behind, the ones that bled and foamed from the mouth, frozen into their last desperate attempts for air.

It had felt like the grease was settling on his tongue, human fat heavy and thick, and he had dry heaved quietly, hand clamped over his mouth. Bone shards, inseparable, swept into rough-hewn boxes, and he had never received one of his own, and neither had Armin ever gotten that terrible box, the one that should have had his name carved in the top, ashes inside. Mikasa, Eren knows, had gotten one, a small, pretty earthen urn, but she had taken it quietly in her small hands and tucked it away, and Eren never asked and never knew where she hid it. He supposes that it’s gone now, smashed, like everything else. Auruo had needled him ceaselessly, but Eren focused on the Commander and the trainees, tried to find familiar faces or voices. The crowd remained closed to him, too far from the stage to distinguish, too quiet to hear.    

As he grabs his shaking wrist, ignores the misshapen cloud of his trembling breath, he doesn’t think of Trost. Doesn’t think about whether or not Armin and Mikasa were injured from where they sat at the tribunal, doesn’t think about the friends, the bodies that could be, and are laid up in the infirmary, doesn’t think about how many people died on the gurney. Doesn’t think of Marco, Jean, Annie, Bert and Reiner going into the Military Police where it’s safe and peaceful and they’ll never have to go a day worrying about when they’ll be torn apart limb by limb when he’s here stuck rotting in the basement, drowning in the putrid stink of his own fear and desperation—doesn’t think about how the Military Police is where Mikasa should be, the place that Mikasa refuses to go to. That’s what the night is for. His dark, empty room in the basement is filled with guilt and corpses, his friends smeared to paste between his gargantuan fingers, his mother dead on cold steel in the surgery where his hands are buried up to the wrists in her chest, her ribs like yawning jaws, snapped open and bent to the sides, and there’s a space where the heart is missing, because there is blood on him, streaked over his ungloved hands, all over his mouth, where he’d fed, where he’d eaten, where he’d leeched from her.

He blinks; his eyes are dry and his hands are clean. Guilt is old hat.

All too soon, he finds himself at the Commander’s doorstep, and in his opinion, it’s pretty outstanding that he managed to remember where the office was at all. He knocks firmly.

“Come in,” replies the Commander. He’s not alone—Corporal Levi is, of course, in attendance as he said he would be, but off to the side is Squad Leader Hanji, two of the infirmary doctors, and an unfamiliar soldier, a man with a scruffy moustache and beard, white bandanna wrapped about his head. The Legion must have arrived while he and the Special Ops squad were busy preparing breakfast, since Squads Levi, Hanji, and Mike, plus Erwin, have been the only ones living in the castle.

Eren gives the sharpest salute he can, digging his heels into the stone floor beneath him out of habit, bracing to run off at any moment. Tense, he also gives a stiff nod to the doctors, who respond in kind. 

“You’re rather early, Eren,” the Commander comments, as put together as ever, shirt unwrinkled, hair in its neat side part. Eren hates him briefly in that small moment, for looking so effortlessly clean and unruffled, so detached and removed.

“Erd sent me off, sir,” he replies, squashing the odd irritation. “He said it might be better to come early.”

“He’s not wrong,” the Commander says with a wry twist of his mouth. “We’ve a busy day ahead of us.” Snorting derisively, Levi mutters darkly into his coffee mug a little behind the Commander, probably something snide and sarcastic.

Bandanna Man chuckles. “Well then, we better get a move on.” The pack in his left hand is familiar, and he tosses it to Eren gently. His smile might be kind, but his eyes are serious and alert, smooth at the corners, and his jaw is stiff. He doesn’t offer a hand to shake. “You’re pretty lucky, you know? Doctor Mensch and Corporal Levi practically bullied the court into returning the evidence. Said you’d be an asset, whether you were a titan or not.”

“Isn’t he though?” the female doctor says, quirking an eyebrow. Short, wavy brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, she’s one of the few infirmary doctors who are formally part of the military, having enlisted before becoming part of medical staff. Nowadays, she doesn’t wear the uniform so much as she wears a white doctor’s coat with her name stitched, carefully, on the lapel: _Doctor Heinz_. He remembers her with scrubs on, spattered in blood, guiding him through his first internal procedure. “The majority of the medical team is made up of doctors and surgeons contracted from Rose. Not exactly the cheapest thing. And only two of us are combat ready, and even then, we’re probably long out of practice. No offense meant? But Scouting Legion isn’t the most popular military division, not by a long shot. We don’t exactly have doctors lining up to collaborate with us, and there’s no formal medic program, so we can’t even go out on expeditions because they need us here.”

“Due to Eren’s…unique circumstances,” Doctor Mensch says from where he stands next to Heinz, “He won’t be able to avoid going out into the field. There’s potential for him to be our first field medic.” Levering himself away from the wall, he sets a heavy hand on Eren’s shoulder. Eren takes care not to tense up, or flinch, but he sees the Captain side-eye him a little, sharp gaze monitoring his every move. No wonder he’d been assigned to the Captain’s squad, if the man watched everyone this closely.

“I was on duty when Eren first came to the infirmary by himself. He’d put stitches into his own belly, a maneuver gear accident, you said?” the doctor says, craning his head down to blink owlishly at the boy in his grasp. Eren gives a jerky nod. “He’d had a good grasp of the basics by then, and he’s got a good bedside manner. Considering his style of treatment, it would be a waste to throw away his medical kit, since he’d have to spend time getting his supplies back together. I daresay he’d be more effective out in the field than any one of us.” Eren resists the urge to dust off his shoulder once Mensch releases him and steps away.

“That pack is his medical kit?” Bandanna Man asks skeptically. “It’s not like any medical kit I’ve seen.”

Doctor Heinz laughs. “Well, he is an Outie, after all,” and she and Doctor Mensch miss the look that Eren tosses them under lowered lashes, poisonous and green and angry, though Hanji, Erwin and Levi haven’t. He can feel their gazes boring into his forehead, where he keeps his head turned towards the ground to give off the impression of modesty. As his fingers dig into the straps of his pack, the glass vials inside clink against each other gently. “He doesn’t use the same gear,” she continues, “Eren’s practice is based around alternative treatment, so it relies on use of herbs, environmental resources.”

“And does he use a bubbling cauldron, too?” the Bandanna Man snorts. “No wonder people are calling you a witch, kid, with all your hocus pocus.”

Eren musters an ingratiating smile, ducking his head. My hocus pocus can fucking kill a man, he thinks behind slightly bared teeth. “I suppose,” he says, and his voice is honey sweet. Heinz and Mensch might be on his side for whatever reason, practicality, perhaps, and they might have been good mentors, but it’s beyond frustrating to have them compliment him and insult him the same breath. Fantastic stitches, Eren. Great job, Eren, catching the symptoms of that post-surgery illness. Oh, but, Eren, why would you use a plant for that when you have medicine? You’re so silly. Pressure points are so unscientific, does that even work? Eren, just use what we get in the infirmary, okay? They’ll tell him is technique is great, they’ll tell him he’s smart and that he learns quickly, but they laugh and sneer at his Outie ways, outdated and superstitious, silly Eren, _real_ medicine doesn’t work that way. He’s never sure if he’s their apprentice, or if he’s just useful. In the end, he was never able to feel comfortable with them beyond a professional relationship.

Squad Leader Hanji barrels into Bandanna Man’s side, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “Don’t be like that, Ness! Eren’s a good kid! Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Even the horses like him, you know.”

Ness’s brow furrows. “You let him take care of the horses?” He eyes Eren warily, give him a visible once over.

“It’s been a busy couple of days,” they say calmly, clenching Ness’ shoulder. “We’ve had to reset all the supply lines, move over bedding and clean the rooms. There are more important things to do than muck stables, so Eren’s been doing it for us. The horses seem just fine with him. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say the Captain’s mare was completely smitten.” Ignoring Levi’s distant huff, Hanji stares at Ness penetratingly, arm still looped over the man’s shoulders. “You’ve always said horses have better instincts than humans, haven’t you?”

What should Eren make of this, having a squad leader he doesn’t even know defend him? His gaze trails after Hanji as they waltz back to Erwin’s side, morning sun glinting off their glasses. Dangerous. All the people in Scouting Legion are dangerous.

“…Sir,” he says, breaking the tense silence, “Will I be getting anything else back?”

“I believe some of the new recruits were your former classmates, and the rest of your belongings were given to them for handover,” the Commander says, hands folded in front of his face. It makes him look suspicious and dishonest. Like he’s hiding something. _‘Who do you think is the enemy’_ , huh? What a question to ask. “They’re out by the stables at the moment. I’d like you to lead the new recruits to the barracks, seeing as you’re already familiar with them. You can retrieve the rest of your things at that time.”

Eren nods, and salutes once more. “Yes sir!”

“Dismissed.”

He gets out of there as fast as he can, doesn’t pause to catch the eye of the doctors, and takes particular care not to look at the Captain, whose hard, flinty stare pricks the fine hairs at his nape. Maybe he’s tracing that perfect arc, that precise one and a half inch deep slice of neck, waiting for Eren to slip up and stumble so he can take a bloody swing at him. Maybe he’s just got dirt on his neck. Eren doesn’t really care, he just wants those eyes off him, wants them blocked by hard wood and meters of stone hallways, pack cinched securely to his back as he runs back to the surface, runs back to refreshing, cold air and dew tipped grass. Anxiety beats frantically against his ribcage, and the rasp of his breath seems like the only sound in his ears, speeds up when he spots the small huddle of green mantles near the stables, rattles in and out until he expels it all, shouts at the familiar blond and black headed figures standing just several feet away.

“ _Mikasa! Armin!”_

His breathing slows.

“ _Eren,_ ” Mikasa breathes, and he will never figure out how she does that, says his name but means everything but. The hand on his arm is steel and he closes his eyes against the bruise of it as her scent wafts to his nose. She is an odd but interesting combination of the little flowers she still tucks in between her folded garments to keep them smelling fresh and clean, and the herbs he gives her to help soothe the irritation of her monthlies, but mostly she is herself, bright, crackling, and crisp, complex in her simplicity. It’s as if he was locked away in a tower like the silly princesses in Armin’s books, displaced in a far and foreign land long enough that he forgot what was familiar.

And to think, he used to spite those princesses for doing nothing about their imprisonment. Winding an arm around Mikasa and Armin each and pressing them close, he thinks he gets it now. It isn’t for lack of will that they don’t leave their prisons, it’s the building blocks of the tower that keep them there, the circumstances of their imprisonment and the circumstances of their escape, that make it impossible for them to exist outside of the tower, outside of that stifled space.

“They didn’t do anything to you?” Armin asks, his vehemence startling, mouth worked into a flat line. “You’re not hurt?”

“I’m fine. They haven’t done anything to me.” He frowns, spotting the deep cut on Mikasa’s face, runs gentle fingers over it.

Mikasa tsks by his ear, expression dark, and volunteers no answers. “That damn shorty was way out of line at the hearing…I’ll make sure to pay him back in full someday. He hasn’t put a hand on you again, has he?”

“You mean...the Captain?” Eren asks, wary. “He hasn’t touched me. He doesn’t touch anyone. And leave it alone will you? I’m in a difficult enough position as it is.” He won’t let himself be alone in a room with the Captain or the Commander ever again, if he can help it. Especially not the Captain.

“Eren,” Connie says, stepping closer gingerly, smile lukewarm and tentative. He doesn’t come closer, uncharacteristically keeping his distance, rocking a little on his heels and rubbing at the back of his neck. “Hey.”

Strange, it’s strange how Connie clusters away from him, Sasha plastered close to his side, offering the same kind of queasy grin, lopsided with the way her eyes are large with unblinking focus, like she’s on the hunt. The other recruits behind them shift uneasily, unable to meet Eren’s eyes or even nod in greeting.

They’re scared of him.

“Hey,” Eren murmurs, and he hates it, hates them, for giving up on him, for cringing away like pathetic dogs, tails between their legs. Reiner, Bert, Ymir and Christa at least, don’t seem have a problem, and Eren takes Reiner’s friendly slap on the back with a short, dry chuckle. “You all joined the Scouting Legion? So it’s just Jean, Marco and Annie in the Military Corps and the rest of you in the Garrison—“

“Marco’s dead.”

Eren turns around quickly, stunned to find Jean emerging from one of the farther horse stalls. “Wait, what? Jean, what are you doing here? You can’t be serious. No way. Marco’s…?”

“Marco’s dead,” Jean repeats, shoving right into Eren’s personal space, nearly bumping chests with him. _Where were you_ , his eyes accuse him. “No one knows how. He didn’t get to use his 3DMG either. He died in a place with no one to see him, where no one knew.” And Jean knows to press Eren’s buttons, crowds in closer, doesn’t give Eren room to reel and process the information. “We can’t all go out with a bang,” he says spitefully, like Eren killed Marco himself.

All Eren can do is search Jean’s face speechlessly. He never even got to see the body.

“And he wasn’t the only one. I hear you tried to kill Mikasa when you turned into a titan. Gave her that scar,” he says, tapping the high curve of his cheekbone. “Care to explain yourself?”

“Eren was just trying to swat a fly,” Mikasa says, puts herself out there the same way she did during that tribunal, but Eren is beyond her reach now, and judging by the incredulous looks being traded about, everyone else knows it, too.

“…seems like it,” Eren manages to say around the block in his throat.

“’Seems’? So you have no memories of it? In other words, you just found out about this titan power, and you don’t know how to control it.” Jean’s stare is flat and unforgiving. Eren wants to scream at him, wants to scream at all of them. Isn’t he still Eren? The same boy who slept, and played late card games and cracked jokes with them for three years? _I had nightmares like that_ , he wants to say, nightmares where people he knew came to him on the steel surgery tables, and left as the grease smoke in the pyres. _I had nightmares like that. Like this. And I wasn’t there to help. I wasn’t there to help you._ But helplessly, helplessly, he wants to shout at them, wants to scream, wants to demand his little bit of peace and quiet where no one blames him for the things he can’t control, where no one accuses him and demands impossible things from him when he’s already been locked away in a tower, the key tossed out the window.

“…Yeah. That sounds right,” he replies, and his voice shakes with that indescribable feeling, that claustrophobia. Armin is tense and quiet beside him, hand clenched tight on Eren’s sleeve.

Jean looks away, seemingly disappointed, grim. “You hear that?” he says to the recruits clustered around them. “That’s what the situation is. That’s what our lives, and the lives of humanity depend on. That’s what we’ll die for, like Marco, without Eren knowing that we’re dead.”

On the contrary. If things continue like they did when he was on infirmary duty, Eren will be the one writing their mortuary tags, identifying their corpses, and sawing off their gangrenous limbs. The reality is that Marco was just the first. Not even that, he was one of many, like Eren’s squad, and the Garrison troops who had died getting him to the boulder. All of them are part of a long, long list, and if their names aren’t on it yet, they will be someday.

But if they fall in battle, no one will know. No one will see. And Eren’s seen the inside of a titan stomach before—he knows how soldiers die. So he takes it, because he knows, gnaws his bottom lip and looks away from Jean’s harsh gaze because there’s nothing he can say to defend himself.

Mikasa, bless her, tries again. “What’s the point of putting Eren down like this?”

“Not all of us are like you, Mikasa,” Jean says, close to a snarl, “We can’t all die for Eren without getting anything in return.” She subsides, tugging at her scarf, and Eren lets their hands bump together in apology. “Both we and Eren need to know what we’re giving up our lives for, otherwise we might hesitate at the most crucial moment.

“Eren, we’re seeking a kind of collateral from you,” Jean says, and he’s stepping closer, closer, staring that short distance down into Eren’s eyes. “Make sure to be very precise when you weigh your life against all the lives that were sacrificed for it.” And Jean is angry and tired too, purple smeared under his eyes, his skin a little thin and sallow, mouth pinched with long grief. “That’s what I’m really asking you,” he says, and his voice twists, wavers with no small amount of desperation and despair. Hands like claws sink into Eren’s shoulders, tugging him ever closer, and Eren feels like he can count every speck of Jean’s fears and worries in his eyes like this, quantified in the minute trembling of Jean’s arms.  “Eren, _please._ ”

Eren’s not in the habit of making promises he can’t keep. If it’s blame or responsibility, he’ll be forced to accept it as humanity’s hope, but they shouldn’t rely on him, shouldn’t invest in him. Perhaps they shouldn’t even believe in him.

“I will,” Eren promises anyway, sliding his hands to cradle Jean’s elbows, because he feels guilty, because he is guilty, but maybe also because owning up to it makes him feel a little better in a weird way. Like the pain of retribution. Like the sting of hindsight.  Something like that.

Jean lets out this long slow breath, before nodding firmly and stepping away.

“Actually, I didn’t come here just to talk,” Eren says, awkward in the sudden mood whiplash. “I’m supposed to take you guys to your rooms. They’re pretty nice actually, bigger than the ones at camp. We just cleaned the yesterday, too.”

“Well, what are you waiting for, Jaeger?” Ymir snorts inelegantly. “Lead the way. Lead by example, or whatever.”

As always, Ymir has a talent for understating the most important things. Lead by example, indeed, Eren thinks wryly, as he turns for the castle.


	9. Final Part

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final part!! I suspect that many first-time readers may feel disappointed at the way this ended, but the conversation in this chapter circles back on a lot of the questions and themes in the fic, and kind of solidifies Eren's thoughts on them. In all honesty, I also didn't want to rehash all of canon. So hopefully this final part brings enough open-endedness that it doesn't seem like things got cut off abruptly. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with this fic!! Especially to all the readers who have kept this fic in mind for the, omg, years it's taken to get it together...it means a lot that you still remember it. Thank you.

Aside from the short waves he exchanges with Mikasa and Armin when they switch training grounds, he doesn’t really get to interact with his friends. He didn’t exactly expect it, since Levi’s Operations Squad moves on a schedule different from the other Scouting Legion soldiers, but he can’t say he isn’t disappointed. Some of Ymir’s sarcasm or Connie’s jokes would have gone a long way in tempering Auruo’s snide jabs and Erd’s wary glances. Even when he’s practicing how to move in a wheelchair on the off chance that he might be short a leg or two after shifting practice one of these days, at least one of them, usually Gunter and Petra, lingers uneasily in the corners of the room.

They’re trying, he knows. Gunter sat next to him in the kitchen the other day, and they peeled potatoes together for three minutes in silence. Every so often Erd will give him an awkward pat on the shoulder after a successful round of maneuver gear training. Petra hasn’t really approached him yet, but that’s because she’s careful. He’s felt her weighty gaze tracking his movements from one side of the room to the other when they clean rooms together, and it feels like she’s somehow always there when he’s forced to interact with other people. It makes him nervous to think that she’s watching.

She catches him in his basement room one night, deep shadows carved into her face by flickering candlelight. Given the chance to retire early for once, Eren’s finally going through his medical kit. Vials have been smashed, the ointments mixing together, painstakingly picked and dried herbs crushed and ground to powder, rendered useless. He’s flinging another handful of leaves into his wastebasket with a growl, when he notices her standing at the bars of his cell.

She stares back. She’s full of steel and will, that’s the secret behind her gentleness. It’s the want to be good, the desire to be kind, in a world that is cruel and brutal, it’s the acceptance of violence and death to understand and appreciate peace and living. That quality of hers reminds him a little of Mikasa. He can understand that, he thinks. Besides, he should know by now—all the people in the Scouting Legion are a little wily, and dangerous.

Somehow, he appreciates that she doesn’t bother asking if she can come in, appreciates the lack of pretense when she withdraws the jangling keys from her pants pocket and unlocks the door to his cell. She leaves the door open. Her footsteps are quiet when she walks to him, and sits down next to him on his bed.

“I heard from Hanji,” she says, and her voice echoes in the cavernous space, “That you might become our field medic.”

“Is that going to be an issue?” Eren says lowly, turning his kit upside down and shaking it. Broken pieces of glass and dead plant matter fall into the wastebasket, an abbreviated, tinkling cacophony.

“You tell me,” she says, levels him with those watchful, hazel eyes.

He just shakes the wastebasket at her. “I barely have anything left,” he snaps. “The tools, some bark, and some herbs for poultices, but that’s it. I’d have to go out and gather more supplies to build my stocks back up.”

“What do you need?” she asks, infuriatingly calm. Seeing her so cool and still makes him even angrier somehow.

“Nothing you could find in an apothecary,” he spits, throws the empty burlap sack down on the bed next to him, almost misses Petra’s slight flinch. “Plants. Flowers. Moss. Barks. I need to go to a goddamn forest, that’s where I need to go.”

“You know we can’t take you,” she says, still sitting next to him, muscles tense and ready. She looks him in the eye when she speaks, even though the corners of her mouth have gone stiff.

Three years of work went into that kit, three years of improvising equipment, stockpiling extra infirmary supplies, and tucking fresh-picked leaves and blooms into the false lining of his uniform jacket. The knowledge that he could take care of himself and of his own in however small a way was a comfort in and of itself, and the smell of earth and greenery that seeded his and Armin’s bunk was a balm on bad days. It calmed his nerves, soothed his nightmares, made him think of the earthy, almost bitter scent of his mother’s medicines, and the sour, acidic tang that clung to his father’s clothes. There was vicious, triumphant pleasure too, because when the infirmary was closed, Eren was the only person to go to, Outie or not. Under those circumstances he never turned anyone away if their injuries were too serious, but it was heady to know that his patient wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye because he was busy helping them avoid major blood loss, and that they were busy eating their words and feeling humiliated because of it.

Eren was interested in plants and medicines, but he’d never thought of being a doctor.

“It’s bullshit, you know,” he says abruptly. “The field medic thing.”

Petra’s brow knits. “What do you mean?” she asks cautiously, prodding, knowing she’s on shaky ground.

“What kind of injuries do you think people will be getting in the field?” he asks, clenching the bedsheet in his hand. “Any of us new recruits, we’ve seen what it looks like, what happens to people who fight titans. You’re not going to need preventive care, you’re going to need a surgeon. But what are we going to do about supplies, when the horses carrying them might be killed, and what are you going to do if you have me shift in the field? What if the next expedition doesn’t go well, and I get executed? What if I die?”

“Do you not want to be a medic?” she asks, and he can still fell her gaze on him, and he appreciates that she still looks directly at him, even as much as he resents it, and her seeming lack of understanding.

“I’m saying it’s all lip service,” he says, throwing the words away from him like rocks, like he could wreck the fallacy of it if he could. Saying things out loud sometimes makes them seem more real, but not any less true. “Whether I’m a medic or not makes no difference. I would be helping out regardless of what they called me. All the title means is expectation. They’ll chat about the progressiveness of it, but the minute something happens and I’m unable to do anything because I don’t have enough training, or because I’m not awake to do it, it’ll be witchcraft this and witchcraft that, we should have known better than to expect an outer-wall kid to treat our soldiers properly.”

“Captain Levi would do anything to bring more of our comrades home safely, and we would too,” Petra says sharply, almost accusing. “Do you really mean that? You’d just throw those lives away?”

“Don’t twist my words,” Eren growls, leaning aggressively towards her. Petra doesn’t back down. “You don’t have any room to be talking to me about comrades and faith, not while I’m still living here in the basement, and none of you can talk to me casually. You think I wouldn’t want to bring people home to their families? To prevent what happened to me from happening to others? Do you think I care about that so little that I’d join the Scouting Legion for the adrenaline rush? That’s real fucking insulting.”

Petra flushes, maybe in indignation, maybe in embarrassment. “Then why are you part of the Scouting Legion?” she says, voice determined and unshaken, still looking at him, still glancing over his eyes, his face, as if her unspoken questions would be answered if she read something out of his expressions. “Why did you join?”

“How else am I supposed to fight?” Eren says, exasperated, and flops back on his bed to look up at the dark, empty ceiling. “I don’t get why I have to explain this to you, you already know this, I’ve said it a hundred times. I’m not content living in the walls like this. I’m getting out, whatever it takes. Armin, Mikasa, and me, we’re gonna go out there and we’re gonna see the ocean and everything the world has to offer. That’s what we’re going to do. Besides, here we get our meals and lodging and a good wage. I’m not even a medical professional, but I can at least pick up things here and there. Out there I’d never get any extra training and education.”

When he turns his head to look at Petra, she meets his gaze readily, still a little flushed, and reaches out unflinchingly, to touch his shoulder. Her body heat seeps through his shirt, a small patch of warmth.

“You’re right,” she says, and it’s somehow remarkable, the way it doesn’t seem to cost her anything to say it. “I’m sorry, that I don’t understand. We should be talking to you more. We should be trying to understand, more.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to help,” Eren says distantly, the fragile standstill drawing the words from him. “I’d still do it. But it’s a sham. They’re trying to make me feel more essential, or more attached or something. And if I can help someone live through their injury, just by a couple minutes, long enough to get them back to the infirmary to get treated, then that’s good. But I’m just one person. And if I fail on the next expedition, to do what’s expected of me, it’s just going to stack more evidence against me when I’m back in court. I don’t really have a choice, when my own life is on the line. Now, I don’t even have my supplies any more. They’ve ruined them all.”

“Eren,” Petra says, just his name, as if trying to comfort him. It feels heavier than the quiet, measured way she greets him in the morning, ‘Hello, Eren,’ so careful to nod in acknowledgement, as if the stilted atmosphere would somehow ameliorate itself in the face of politesse.

“I can’t save anyone,” he says in a raspy whisper, and sitting in the dark with her, saying this much seems permissible. “No matter what sort of title or pretty name they give me, I can’t save everyone. When someone dies on you on their sickbed, that’s the first thing you learn. It doesn’t mean you try any less, or do any less, but sometimes. You just can’t do anything.”

“ _You’re_ doing something,” Petra says, and her grip on his shoulder tightens, as if she had claws rather than fingers. “You are. Just because you can’t see the result now, or not until decades later…and it might not mean much coming from me, but _you are doing something_. By talking to me right now, by telling me these things. I think you’re incredibly brave. I think you’ve been much kinder to us, than we have to you, even though you’re…you’re basically stuck in this situation. Even though we’re a part of it.

“I’ll help you, Eren,” she says, grabbing his hand, eyes lit and jaw set. “I’ll help you get the supplies you need. I’ll help you in what I can. Maybe one day, you’ll be able to call us your comrades, maybe you won’t. But I’m glad you’re telling me all these things. I came here today because I didn’t know where we stood, and I wanted to talk to you, even though I didn’t know where it would go. So thank you.”

She smiles, so open and friendly that Eren feels his jaw loosen a little in surprise.

“Bring me a list of what you need tomorrow, okay?” she says, clapping him on the back before resting her hands on his shoulders. “I’ll see if I can put my head with…Armin and Mikasa, was it? And get you the things you need. But for the record – I think you’re amazing. We’re in the military, and whenever we go out we’re seeing all this carnage, and when we’re back here we’re fighting, we’re training. To be able to help heal, to be able to seal up our wounds or help straighten out broken bones, or to keep our hearts beating…not everyone can do that, you know? Anyone can hurt someone else, but not every can be a healer. You should give yourself a little more credit.”

Just like that, Petra leaves his cell, closing the grate quietly behind her. She only gives the lock a single turn, instead of the typical three.

“Remember,” she says almost mischievously, “Don’t forget the list.”

Eren nods, still a little dumbfounded. He begins changing for bed, somehow exhausted, and approaches his rickety desk to blow out the kerosene lamp sitting on top. He looks down, examines his hands, wiggling his fingers under candle light. They’re calloused, like the hands of any good soldier should be. The middle finger of his right hand is a little crooked, from when he broke it when he was nine, he has a couple nicks here and there from training with the maneuver gear blades, discolored blotches where he’d been burned once or twice from creating his medicines, new skin growing over the old tenderness. His left hand bears none of his old scars and marks, he supposes that’s just the consequence of growing a new one. But otherwise they seem like very normal hands to him.

The sheets are cools when he slips under them, and he curls up a little to warm up faster. A healer, that’s what Petra had called him. No one has called him that before. He’s never thought of _not_ treating someone who comes to him for help, never thought of not working with plants and medicines, not because he wants them but because they’re simply something ubiquitous. It’s the knowledge of his childhood, and the knowledge that’s helped him and his family, then and now, survive.

He closes his eyes. Talking to Petra made it seem like there might be more to it than normal hands, than normal knowledge. Like despite the barriers, despite his ugly feelings of occasional hopelessness, of wanting to be acknowledged as he was, he could remake and rebuild, become a better, stronger person. Like his life was larger than him. Like what he could achieve, was larger than him. Like a dream.

Adjusting the covers about him, Eren sighs, and lets his weight sink into the threadbare pillow and mattress, lets himself become heavy. It’s a good dream, if he could have it.

**Author's Note:**

> ....Did this fic look reaaaally familiar? That's probably because you saw the earliest version of this fic when I posted it over two years ago on [the snk kink meme](http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/2124.html?thread=1883212#cmt1883212). 
> 
> This was actually the first fic I ever wrote for SnK, and the first fic I had written in maybe two to three years, and definitely the first work where I had ever done so much unexpected worldbuilding. In all honesty BUJ is really self indulgent and not based on much research, but since it was such a landmark for me, and was what really got me started writing again, it holds a special place in my heart! Aside from some short edits this likely won't deviate far from its original form, but if you are a first time reader, this does mean that the fic is done, it's just being uploaded section by section so I can go through and edit it. For a long time I didn't think I would be able to finish it, and maybe some longer-time readers might find the end disappointing, but this was good enough for me.
> 
> Definitely welcoming any commentary and thoughts! Hope you enjoyed, and look forward to the next part!


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